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Bust of a young man of the Antonine age
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Bust of a young man of the Antonine age
138-192 AD
Antonine
Antonine
Medium-grained Greek marble
Height (in present state, excluding base): 61cm
Height (bust to neck): 30cm
Height (head): 28cm
Height (bust to neck): 30cm
Height (head): 28cm
Museum number: M1029
Vermeule catalogue number: Vermeule 412
On display: Sepulchral Chamber
All spaces are in No. 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields unless identified as in No. 12, Soane's first house.
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Curatorial note
High nude bust of a thick set young man with aquiline nose, broad features, and thick, curly hair.
In speaking of the now-detached inscription-plate adorned with a palmette, Poulsen wrote, 'Inscription-plates adorned with palmette and rosette seem to have been specifically favoured in the provincial sculpture of the Roman Empire; thus we find the palmette on a bust at Petrograd from South Russia (Poulsen no. 258); and the rosette on the bust found in Egypt by Carlsberg (Poulsen no. 735).1 These can also be compared with the lictor emblems on the inscription-plate of a bust at Petrograd.2
This bust, which is in a better state of preservation than any other in the Soane Museum, has a brother, it appears, in a bust in the British Museum, and belongs to the time of Antoninus Pius.3 The bust of a fat Greek, Ny Carlsberg 4644, wears garments identical with those of Polydeukes (see Soane M517/Vermeule 410) and is likewise set upon a circular pedestal rather than a palmette support. It is stated to have been found in Athens.
See also H. Jucker, Das Bildnis im Blätterkelch, Lausanne, 1961, I, p.95 and note 6.
1Frederick Poulsen, Catalogue of ancient sculpture in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, 1951, p. 513, pls. LXII.
2 Hauser, Jahreshefts des Oesterreichischen Archäologischen Institutes, X, 1907, p. 153.
3 Hinks, Greek and Roman Portraits, no.1910. Arndt-Bruckmann, 15-16, and 225-226.
4 Arndt-Bruckmann 908; F. Poulsen, Catalogue of ancient sculpture in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, 1951, p. 331, pls. XXXV.
In speaking of the now-detached inscription-plate adorned with a palmette, Poulsen wrote, 'Inscription-plates adorned with palmette and rosette seem to have been specifically favoured in the provincial sculpture of the Roman Empire; thus we find the palmette on a bust at Petrograd from South Russia (Poulsen no. 258); and the rosette on the bust found in Egypt by Carlsberg (Poulsen no. 735).1 These can also be compared with the lictor emblems on the inscription-plate of a bust at Petrograd.2
This bust, which is in a better state of preservation than any other in the Soane Museum, has a brother, it appears, in a bust in the British Museum, and belongs to the time of Antoninus Pius.3 The bust of a fat Greek, Ny Carlsberg 4644, wears garments identical with those of Polydeukes (see Soane M517/Vermeule 410) and is likewise set upon a circular pedestal rather than a palmette support. It is stated to have been found in Athens.
See also H. Jucker, Das Bildnis im Blätterkelch, Lausanne, 1961, I, p.95 and note 6.
1Frederick Poulsen, Catalogue of ancient sculpture in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, 1951, p. 513, pls. LXII.
2 Hauser, Jahreshefts des Oesterreichischen Archäologischen Institutes, X, 1907, p. 153.
3 Hinks, Greek and Roman Portraits, no.1910. Arndt-Bruckmann, 15-16, and 225-226.
4 Arndt-Bruckmann 908; F. Poulsen, Catalogue of ancient sculpture in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, 1951, p. 331, pls. XXXV.
Provenance
Unrecorded. Vermeule considered 'there seems every external indication that Vermeule 410-413 (M517; M1028, M1029 and M1026) entered the collection from a common (antique?) source.
Literature
F. Poulsen, Greek and Roman Portraits in English Country Houses, trans. G.C.Richards, Oxford, 1923, p.96, no. 84.
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