A Roman Marble Torso of Narcissus, circa 1st Century A.D.

VAT reduced rateUK: Greenford Park Warehouse

Lot Closed

December 17, 01:27 PM GMT

Estimate

400,000 - 600,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Property from an American Private Collection

A Roman Marble Torso of Narcissus

circa 1st Century A.D.

standing with the weight on his right leg, his right hand resting with the palm out behind his hip, his left hand formerly supported by a pillar; no restorations.

Height 67 cm.

Alfredo Barsanti, Piazza di Spagna, Rome, prior to September 1st, 1936
Raphael Salem (1898-1963) and Adriana Salem (1903-1976), née Gentili di Giuseppe, Cambridge, Massachusetts, by 1954
French private collection, by descent from the above (Sotheby's, London, April 4th, 1977, no. 198, illus.)
Leon Levy, New York
Robin Symes, London
American private collection (Sotheby's, New York, December 17th, 1992, no. 71, illus.)
Ariadne Galleries, New York, early 1990s
European collection (Christie's, New York, December 9th, 2010, no. 163, illus.)
acquired by the present owner at the above sale

"Ancient Art in American Private Collections", The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, December 28th, 1954 - 15 February 15th, 1955

RECORDED

Two photographs in the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut Rome, taken in 1936 on the Roman art market (Barsanti), Inst.-Neg. Rom 36.504/5: http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/marbilderbestand/825609 ; http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/marbilderbestand/825610 ; http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/marbilder/160284 )

PUBLISHED

Ancient Art in American Private Collections. A Loan exhibition at the Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass, 1954, p. 28, no. 167, pl. 49

Felix Eckstein, "Zwei amerikanische Kataloge," Gnomon, vol. 31, 1959, p. 645

Andreas Linfert, "Die Schule des Polyklet," in: H. Beck et al., eds., Polyklet. Der Bildhauer der griechischen Klassik, Mainz, 1990, p. 293, note 19

This torso is a Roman replica of the so-called Narkissos type, which is based on a Greek original of the late 5th Century B.C by a follower of Polykleitos. For the type, known in more than forty copies, see most recently K. Knoll et al., eds., Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Katalog der antiken Bildwerke, vol. 2, 2011, pp. 712ff., no. 165. Another replica was sold at Sotheby’s, New York, June 12th, 1993, no. 112, from the Palazzo Barberini: Photographische Einzelaufnahmen antiker Sculpturen, no. 2890.