Italian, 19th century, After the Antique

Marble, the socle plate inscribed in Greek: ΔΗΜΟΣΘΕΝΗΣ

53.5 cm. / 21 ins high overall

PROVENANCE:
Private collection, Scotland

This attractive marble bust depicts the famous Greek orator Demosthenes (384-322 BC), who led Athens in its uprisings against Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great. The orator is shown with a full beard, curling locks of hair thinning at the front and deeply furrowed brows, as though focussed on a thought or speech.

Of the extant portraits of Demosthenes, the present bust appears to be based on a Roman herm bust in Munich (Glyptothek, inv. 292), which was discovered in the Circus Maxentius, Rome in 1825. In the Munich head, the specific curls of hair around the forehead and sides of the head in particular seem to match the composition of the present bust, suggesting that our bust is based on the Munich head. It is likely to have been carved in an Italian workshop in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Demosthenes, a contemporary of Plato and Aristotle, was born in Athens in 384 BC.Early in 351, Demosthenes delivered a speech against Philip II, the so-called “First Philippic”, establishing him as the leader of the opposition to the Macedons. Demosthenes also led the uprising against the new king of Macedonia, Alexander the Great; the revolt was met with a strong Macedonian reaction and Alexander's successor, Antipater, sent his men to assassinate Demosthenes, who committed suicide by poisoning himself. Demosthenes’ speech “On the Crown”, delivered in 330, is often regarded as one of the greatest speeches of all time. His fame in antiquity was such that, when the Roman orator Cicero delivered a series of speeches in 44 BC opposing Mark Antony, they were called the Philippics. During the Renaissance and Enlightenment, Demosthenes’s name was synonymous with eloquence and political freedom.

RELATED LITERATURE:
Margarete Bieber, The Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age. New York, 1981, pp. 66-67. Gisela Richter, The Portraits of the Greeks, vol. II. London, 1965, pp. 215-223; Paul Zanker, Roman Portraits: Sculptures in Stone and Bronze. New York, 2016, pp. 36-38

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[1] For images of this statue, see Bieber, op. cit., figs 217-223.

[2] For details and images of the herm in Munich, see Richter, op. cit., p. 220 no. 36, figs. 1476-1477, 1481 and Zanker, op. cit., p. 38, fig. 15.

[3] For biography, see: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Demosthenes-Greek-statesman-and-orator