A Roman Marble Portrait Bust of Emperor Antoninus Pius, circa A.D. 140

UK: Greenford Park Warehouse

Auction Closed

December 6, 03:36 PM GMT

Estimate

600,000 - 900,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Property from the Berkeley Collection at Spetchley Park

A Roman Marble Portrait Bust of Emperor Antoninus Pius

circa A.D. 140

monumental in size, the emperor with his head turned to his left, his mature face with thoughtful countenance, full beard and moustache, deep-set eyes with incised irises and dotted pupils, and incised eyebrows, his thick hair radiating from the crown in long wavy locks and massed in rich deeply drilled and unruly voluted curls around the forehead and temples, and wearing a tunic, cuirass, and paludamentum fastened with a circular brooch on the right shoulder, the fringed hem of the cloak falling in zigzag folds from the left shoulder, the entire bust and its socle carved in one piece; head repaired at the neck, the nose, chin, and right eyebrow restored.

Height 97 cm.

said to have been found at Pozzuoli

Raffaelle Barone, Naples

Robert Martin Berkeley (1823-1897) and Lady Mary Catherine Berkeley (1829-1924), Spetchley Park, Worcestershire, acquired from the above on June 11th, 1851, while on their honeymoon

by descent to the present owner

Documented

Robert Martin Berkeley's honeymoon diary 1851 [manuscript]:'Wednesday June 11 - Bought of Raffaello Baroni dealer in antiquities in the Strada Constantinopoli an antique marble bust of Antoninus Pius, etc.' (Berkeley Family Archive at Spetchley Park)

Busts bought in Italy 1851 [manuscript]: 'Naples... Bust of Antoninus Pius 240 Ducats £44-2 (Raff Baroni) found at Pozzuoli' (Berkeley Family Archive at Spetchley Park)

Inventory of Furniture, Plates, Glass, China, Plated Articles on the Premises of Spetchley Park, Worcester, 1893 [manuscript]: '10 marble busts on pedestals as follows... 1 antique 37'' Antoninus Pius on ditto [scagliola pedestal]', in the Inner Hall (Berkeley Family Archive at Spetchley Park)

For an extensive and richly illustrated overview of Antoninus’ portraiture see K. Fittschen and P. Zanker, Katalog der römischen Porträts in den Capitolinischen Museen, vol. 1, 1985, pls. 67-69 and Beilage 39-49.

The present bust is closely related to another example in Castle Howard (Fittschen and Zanker cit., Beilage 41; B. Borg et al., Die antiken Skulpturen in Castle Howard, 2005, p. 85f., no. 41, pl. 40f.; https://arachne.dainst.org/entity/1064014), in the way the folds of the paludamentum are carved, suggesting that they were both produced in the same workshop.

Antoninus Pius’ portrait type, which remained almost unchanged during his 23-year reign, is likely to have been created by his court sculptors on the occasion of his accession to the throne at age fifty-two in A.D. 138. Another high-quality portrait of Antoninus Pius, now in the Yale University Art Gallery, was sold at Sotheby’s, New York, June 12th, 2003, no. 54.

Antoninus Pius (reigned AD 138-161), like his adoptive father Hadrian, is wearing the philosopher’s beard, a sign that he wanted to show himself not only as a man of action, but also as a thinker steeped in Greek philosophy and culture. Unlike Hadrian he rarely traveled outside of Rome and Italy, preferring to administer the Empire from the capital. According to an ancient writer, “In personal appearance he was strikingly handsome, in natural talent brilliant, in temperament kindly; he was aristocratic in countenance and calm in nature, a singularly gifted speaker and an elegant scholar, conspicuously thrifty, a conscientious land-holder, gentle, generous, and mindful of others’ rights“ (Historia Augusta, III,2).

According to S. Sarti, Giovanni Pietro Campana (1808-1880). The Man and his Collection, 2001, p. 33: "A renowned dealer working in Naples was Raffaele Barone, whose shop was well known to most archaeologists, since he allowed them to study the antiquities he acquired." Several vases from his collection were published by G. Minervini, Monumenti antichi inediti posseduti da Raffaele Barone, 1850.