A Fine Marble Bust of Cicero, After the Antique

Italy, 19th century, After the Antique
Bust of Cicero
Marble, the socle plate inscribed: 'CICERO'
52 cm. / 20 ½ ins overall

PROVENANCE:
Private collection, Scotland

This Neoclassical marble bust depicts the Roman orator and statesman, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 - 43 BC), one of the great intellectuals of Republican Rome.

Of the extant ancient portraits of Cicero, the present head is probably carved after the bust now in Apsley House, London, which was acquired by the Duke of Wellington in 1816 from the Mattei Collection, Rome. The bare shoulders, shape of the head and sharp turn to sinister, rendering of the hair and strongly lined brows and creases of the forehead all suggest that it is based on a cast or engraving of the Mattei Cicero. It was probably carved in an Italian workshop in the second half of the nineteenth century.


RELATED LITERATURE:
Wolf-R. Megow, 'Republikanische Bildnis-Typen', 2005, pp. 109-16, pl. 62