LOT 0143

Roman Marble Head of Euripides

2ND CENTURY A.D.

9 7/8 in. (7.46 kg, 25 cm).

An impressive carved herm of the tragic author of the tragic author Euripides, portrayed as an elderly man with full beard and long hair forming compact, slightly wavy strands, radiating from a single point at the back of the head and combed forwards over the forehead; heavy brow and small mouth; cracked and repaired.

English private collection, acquired in the late 1970s/early 1980s.
David Cambridge, Cheltenham.
with Galerie Chenel, Paris, acquired from the above in 1998.
French private collection, acquired from the above in 1999/2000.
Ancient Marbles, Classical Sculpture and works of art; Sotheby's, London, 13 June 2016, no.49.

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 number no.12191-222443.

Cf. for the famous copy in Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli see Gasparri, C., (ed.), Le sculture Farnese, vol.2, 2009, pp.32ff., no.14, pl.14; cf. Richter, G.M.A., The Portraits of the Greeks, Vol. I, London, 1965, pp.133-140, illus.717-767, for an overview of the known ancient copies of the portrait of Euripides; among them we remember the one of the Getty Museum (inv. no.79.AA.133), a Roman copy from Lesbos dated at 2nd century A.D., in Antonaccio, C. M. ‘Style, Reuse, and Context in a Roman Portrait at Princeton,’ in Archaeologischer Anzeiger 3, (1992), pp.414-452, p.449, no.30.

Euripides was a classical Athenian playwright and one of the three great tragedians of ancient Greece, alongside Aeschylus and Sophocles. Born in 480 B.C., his work is renowned for its complex characters and psychological depth, often exploring the darker aspects of human nature and societal norms. Euripides' plays, such as Medea, The Bacchae, and Hippolytus, are marked by their innovative use of mythological themes to comment on contemporary issues.