A Bronze Statuette in the British Museum and the 'Aristotle' of the Palazzo Spada Author(s): Katharine A. Esdaile Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 34 (1914), pp. 47-59 Published by: Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/624475 Accessed: 05-02-2016 06:20 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies and Cambridge University Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Hellenic Studies. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 130.113.111.210 on Fri, 05 Feb 2016 06:20:59 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions A BRONZE STATUETTE IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM AND THE 'ARISTOTLE' OF THE PALAZZO SPADA. [PLATES II.-VII.] AMONGthe most important bronzes in the British Museum is the statuette of a philosopher, said to have been found in dredging the harbour at Brindisi, which was acquired in 18651 (P1. II.). It measures 20 inches (50-8 cm.) in height, and represents a bearded man seated-though the original seat has disappeared-and resting his chin on his right hand; his left arm, muffled in his only garment, the himation that passes over his left shoulder, lies across his lap and supports the right arm; the right foot is drawn back behind the left, and he wears sandals elaborately tied. The thoughtful and interesting head (P1. III.) suggests in type and period the pleasanter portraits of Aeschines and the newly discovered Aristotle; hair and beard are cut close,2 the features are small and well shaped, the whole effect in singular harmony with the reflective pose of the figure. The surface has suffered from the action of water, and there is a large hole on the left shoulder, and a crack running down the arm. The statuette is compared by Michaelis, one of the very few writers to mention it, with the seated 'Demosthenes' of Petworth, a portrait statue of Attic origin to which a head of the orator has been wrongly affixed; 3 but though the composition is similar, the statue lacks the distinctive feature of the bronze, the hand wrapped in the himation and laid across the lap. A much closer parallel is to be found in one of the figures, that seated in front of the sundial, on the famous mosaic discovered some years ago at Pompeii, representing an assembly of philosophers or learned men,4 which is a variant of that in the Villa Albani from Sarsina in Umbria; in the latter, however, the distinctive left arm is placed in a different position, and it is obviously unsafe to generalise when the only known copies of a composition differ in an important point. Again, in the matter of dress the parallel is not exact, 1 B.AM.Catalogue of Bronzes, No. 848; 3 Wrongly, because the type of the seated Michaelis, Ancient Marbles in Great Britain, orator is without authority: Bernoulli, Grn p. 608; Encycl, Brit. ninth ed. vol. ii. p. 365, Ikon. ii. pp. 78-9 ; Studniczka, das Bildnis des Fig. 12, a poor cut which is so far the only Aristoteles, p. 7. published illustration of the figure. 4 Monum. d. Lincei, 1898, PI. XII.; Ber- 2 The figure is not beardless, as stated in the noulli, Gr. Ikon. ii. pp. 36-37 ; Helbig Fiihrer,3 Catalogue. ii. p. 46, and references. 47 This content downloaded from 130.113.111.210 on Fri, 05 Feb 2016 06:20:59 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 48 KATHARINE A. ESDAILE as the figure on the mosaic wears a tunic, and so can hardly represent a truly Greek conception of the head of a philosophic -school; the coincidence of pose is worth noting, but there can be no question of a community of subject between the mosaic and the bronze. It is, however, not a little strange that the relation of the latter to a group of other works which includes three replicas on a small but varying scale and one life-size and world- famous statue, should have escaped notice, but this is partly due, no doubt, to the fact that not one of these replicas has the original head. In the combination of these with the British Museum bronze lies the solution of one of the famous enigmas of ancient art. The replicas are as follows:- (a) Bronze statuette in the British Museum. (The literature of this work is very scanty; the available references have been already given.) (b) Statuette in the Galleria dei Candelabri of the Vatican, P1. V., 'two palms high' (Welcker), often called Sophocles on the strength of the restored head; restored are also the bare feet, the right arm, the supports of the seat, and the plinth, and the figure struck me when I examined it in October, 1912, as having been worked over or at least much polished. (Clarac, P1. 846, No. 2132, 'Rome, Coll. Chablais'; Pistolesi vi. P1. 29; Monumenti Amaranziani 30; Welcker, A.D. i. p. 460; Helbig, Fiihrer 2 No. 370, omitted in Helbig ; Reinach, Repertoire i. p. 513.) (c) Statuette in the Museo Barracco, P1. VI., 201 in. ('515 m.) in height, unrestored: head and right hand missing, but the original seat with its curved and reeded legs preserved intact; on the seat is a cushion, treated with extreme realism, as are the forms of the lean and wrinkled body and the drapery, which is bolder and looser than in the other replicas; sandals elaborately tied, differing slightly in the details of the knot from those of (a). (' Vieux savant,' Collection Barracco, P1. LXIV.; 'formerly in the collection of the antiquary Scalambrini.') (d) Statuette formerly in Dresden (Fig. 1), 'anderthalb Ellen hoch' (Welcker), wrongly restored with the head of Euripides; the bare feet and right arm holding a scroll are clearly restorations; as to the seat, it is impossible to judge from the shaded drawing by which alone we know the work. (Le Plat, Recueil des Marbres Antiques, P1. III.; Clarac, P1. 841, No. 2093 D, after Le Plat; Welcker, A.D. i. p. 487; the latter, writing in 1867, notes that the statuette was omitted from contemporary guide- books; it has not since reappeared.) To sum up, (a) gives us the original head, but the surface of the bronze has suffered, as much in the head as elsewhere, and it cannot be relied on for minute details; (b) and (c) give us the form of the seat, a stool-a cushion worked with remarkable realism is added in the Barracco example- with delicately curved and reeded legs, and (c) is also noteworthy for the extreme care with which the wrinkled skin about the breast and armpits is rendered, shewing that the subject was an elderly man,5 and that the type is post-Lysippic. This is confirmed by the type of head in (a), which finds 5 (b) is a relatively poor copy, and has apparently been worked over; (d) cannot be judged of by the engraving. This content downloaded from 130.113.111.210 on Fri, 05 Feb 2016 06:20:59 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions J.H.S. VOL. XXXIV. (1914). PL. II. ?r ?1~ ;ar? .~ ii i ;~ fL-- ,. IBi ?; r~RRI~'.~'~?%rUElsaF;~I;,~:? "r Z? d i ~B~i~?~?~Bl~pi~,~l~'7T "?r".lx~?`~~'~r~a~i~b~: Pil ?r: i- :I ?:?:ql ,:: ?, : I- -dELeCI~-` ~ ---~-CU~ ,t-?~ '1 I'i i* -::: $~8~~ r;i :iS?~ ,j t~ :' 5. ~: ?;~4 .?: e; a ~a~k~S ,ezr~,?y: ???; :~" -~ t "''1.~ This content downloaded from 130.113.111.210 on Fri, 05 Feb 2016 06:20:59 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BRONZE STATUETTE OF ARISTIPPUS BRITISH MUSEUM. 1- j's At",t 3-4 41?7 4A?~Z`. 4 IwA 'Ar'-Af tLr Aid I r ARISTIPPUS: HEAD OF BRONZE STATUETTE BRITISH MUSEUM. 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