THE BEAUTY WITHIN: The Chenel Collection

A Roman Marble Figure of Eros, circa 1st Century B.C.

UK: Greenford Park Warehouse

Lot Closed

December 17, 04:14 PM GMT

Estimate

35,000 - 45,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

A Roman Marble Figure of Eros

circa 1st Century B.C.

advancing with his right leg forward and bending over slightly, the left arm lowered, the right one held forward, his head turned to the right, his hair arranged in a central braid on the crown and falling in thick curls falling over the shoulders; no restorations.

Height 61 cm.

the Danish painter and sculptor Jens Adolf Jerichau (1816-1883), at his studio in Rome prior to 1879
the Danish philosopher Claudius Wilkens (1844-1929), acquired at one of Jerichau's estate sales in Copenhagen in 1884 (no. 10, for 21 kroner)
Bruun Rasmussen, Copenhagen,
acquired at the above sale

Friedrich Matz, Friedrich von Duhn, Antike Bildwerke in Rom, vol. 1, Leipzig, 1881, p. 331, no. 1131
Christie’s, London, October 29th, 2003, no. 34, illus.

A replica was found in Aphrodisias: J. van Voorhis, The sculptor’s workshop, Aphrodisias, vol. 10, 2018, p. 83, no. 29, pl. 39. A related statue is in Copenhagen: M. Moltesen, Catalogue Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. Imperial Rome, vol. 2, 2002, p. 340f., no. 116 (http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/objekt/8509). The figure was probably playing with a ball or wheel, like cupids on Roman sarcophagi: B. Andreae, ed., Bildkatalog der Skulpturen des Vatikanischen Museums, vol. I.3, 1994, pl. 830.

For an inspired portrait of Jens Jerichau by his wife Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann

see https://www.europeana.eu/sv/item/2063604/DEN_280_013.

For a photograph of Professor Claudius Wilkens in his study, with the present figure displayed in the fireplace, see Christie's, op.cit.