LOT 0132

Roman Marble Head of a Satyr

LATE 1ST-EARLY 2ND CENTURY A.D.

15 3/4 in. (18.2 kg total, 40 cm including stand).

Finely carved head of a young satyr with arched brows, pointed ears and tousled curly hair, his short rounded horns projecting from the hairline, lips drawn back in a mischievous smile with the tip of his tongue protruding to his right; head turned to his right, eyes slightly downcast; traces of wattles to each side of the jaw, tip of nose abraded, forelock chipped; mounted on a custom-made display stand.

Christoph Bernoulli (1897-1981), Basel, possibly acquired from Münzen & Medaillen AG, Basel; thence by descent.

Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D’Amato.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate no.12188-222442.

See Reinach, S., Répertoire de la statuaire grecque et romaine, Paris, 1897, p.788, nos.4-5; Bianchi Bandinelli, R., Roma, l’arte romana nel centro del potere, Milano, 1969; for a related full figure in the Louvre, see Simon, E., ‘Silenoi,’ in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, Zurich and Dusseldorf, 1997, nos.214-216; cf. also Ridgway, B.S., Greek Sculpture in the Art Museum, Princeton University. Greek Originals, Roman Copies and Variants, Princeton, 1994, p.82, no.26; for a seated satyr playing the flute in Cambridge, see Budde, L. & Nicholls, R., A Catalogue of the Greek and Roman Sculpture in the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1964, no.83.

The head seems a work of the 2nd century A.D., derived from Hellenistic prototypes, likely based on a Greek original of the 4th or 3rd century B.C. traditionally associated with the work of Praxiteles, Skopas or Lysippos, depicting a standing Pan playing the flute with his legs crossed. However, both the present head and the Princeton example, always after Hellenistic prototypes of the mid-2nd century B.C., are close to the statue of the so-called Young Centaur signed by Aristeas and Papias, in bigio morato, which was found at Tivoli in Hadrian’s Villa and is now in the collection of the Capitoline Museum (inv. No. MC0656).