An important bronze portrait statuette of a Hellenistic ruler in the guise of Herakles

CIRCA 2ND CENTURY B.C.

细节

An important bronze portrait statuette of a Hellenistic ruler in the guise of Herakles
Circa 2nd Century B.C.
In vibrant pose stepping to the right with chest turning, his bearded head looking to the left, wearing fillet in his curled hair and a sumptuous separately worked lion pelt over his left shoulder which billows out behind him, the lion head, four paws and tail with Herakles knot clearly shown, holding quiver of arrows(?) under his left arm the tip of which, in the form of a bird head, appears through the pelt at the back, lower arms and legs missing, on rotating mount
8 in. (20.1 cm.) high

拍品专文

This portrait of a Hellenistic Prince, perhaps a Seleucid or Ptolemy, exudes the energy and innovation characteristic of Hellenistic sculpture at its best. The figure is caught in a moment of action, torso and head twisting, the movement resulting in a great swirl of the heavy and luxuriant lion pelt which streams out behind him. His muscles are visibly bursting with suppressed action; the powerful modelling of the limbs and torso along with the veins straining in the lower abdomen, conveys the compressed energy in the figure's pose.
The object carried under the left arm has been tentatively identified as a quiver but may be a cornucopia - a likely subject to judge from its appearance on coins of the period - but the end in the form of a bird's head remains puzzling. The notion of a quiver brings to mind the statuette of Mithridates IV of Pontus (the last Greek ruler to reside at Pergamon) in the guise of Herakles liberating Prometheus; he wears a lion-skin and is shooting an arrow vigorously at the eagle that is torturing Prometheus. His body is full of action, muscled and veined, and his thick curly hair and deeply furrowed brow are not unlike those of the figure above (See Altertümer von Pergamon, vol. VII, pp. 175ff., no. 168, Supp. pl. 25, pl. XXXVII).

For a close example of a Ptolemaic bronze portrait statue, formerly in the Fouquet Collection but now lost, see Sonderuck aus dem Jahrbuch des Museums für kunsg und Gewerbe, Hamburg, 1988, Band 6-7, no. 6.