Italian, 19th century, After the Antique

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.

Cicero is acknowledged as one of the finest legal and political orators of all time, whose inspiration came from his love and deep study of ancient Greek philosophy.[1] Such love for all things Greek led to him being nicknamed ‘the little Greek boy’, but he also became obsessed with the history and laws of Rome. Cicero’s family came from the respected class of middle-ranking Roman citizens called equites (knights). The present portrait probably dates to the latter part of Cicero’s life, after a glittering legal and political career which was interrupted by civil war and his personal clashes with two Roman dictators, Sulla and Julius Caesar.

After his reconciliation with Julius Caesar in 46 BC, at the age of sixty, Cicero focussed on his writings, which represent one of Rome’s greatest intellectual achievements. Cicero translated some of the most important philosophical texts of ancient Greece for a contemporary Roman audience. His translations and critiques of the various schools of Greek philosophy had a strong influence on the Early Christian Church and his letters and dialogues provided inspiration for Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers. Cicero was taken by surprise by the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC, the fallout of which led to him, as spokesman for the Senate, being targeted by the Second Triumvirate of Mark Antony, Marcus Lepidus and Octavian, who had him assassinated in 43 BC.

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.[2] 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

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[1] For biographical details of Cicero’s life, cf. Anthony Everitt, Cicero: A Turbulent Life. London, 2001

[2] For description and images of the Apsley House Cicero bust, see Megow, op. cit., pp. 110-11, 115-16, pl. 62 a-d.