- Museum number
- 1805,0703.104
- Description
-
Marble bust of the emperor Septimius Severus.
- Production date
- 200-210 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 67.31 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- Cook 2011, nr. 201:
‘A bust of Septimius Severus, found 1776 on the Palatine hill, in the part of the ancient pallace of the Caesars, now occupied by the Villa Magnani’ (TY 12/3, dining room 14).
Bought from Jenkins in 1777, together with Cook 2011, nr. 200 (present location unknown), for £50 (TY 8/74/17, TY 8/74/29, TY 8/75/6, and ‘Union Catalogue’, fo. 61v), of which £30 was allocated to this item in TY 10/3 (fo. 20), £35 in TY 10/5 and TY 12/1, and £40 in TY 10/6-7. Townley also paid 75 Scudi for restoration (TY 8/74/17), specifying in TY 8/51 and the ‘Union Catalogue’ (fo. 54r) that it was paid to the Sposino.
Date:
Restored by Sposino, bust alien: ‘may, in part, be ancient’ (McCann).
Drawings:
* Townley drawing 2010,5006.204;
* Nollekens: B. F. Cook, `The Townley Marbles in Westminster and Bloomsbury’, The British Museum Yearbook, 2 (1977), 45, figs. 26-27, no. 1;
* Chambers: B. F. Cook, `The Townley Marbles in Westminster and Bloomsbury’, The British Museum Yearbook, 2 (1977), 42-43, figs. 24-25, no. 6.
Bibliography:
- Synopsis of the Contents of the British Museum (1808), VI.34;
- Ancient Marbles of the British Museum, X, pl. 11;
- A Guide to the Graeco-Roman Sculptures in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 2 vols. (London, 1874 [1892] and 1876), I, no. 36;
- A. H. Smith, A Catalogue of Sculpture in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum, Vol. III (London 1904), 166, no. 1916;
- R. P. Hinks, Greek and Roman Portrait Sculpture (London, 1935), 32, pl. 44a;
- S. Howard, Bartolomeo Cavaceppi, eighteenth-century restorer (PhD thesis 1958; Chicago, 1980), 264, no. 13;
- K. Fittschen, Prinzenbildnisse antoninischer Zeit. Beiträge zur Erschlieβung hellenistischer und kaiserzeitlicher Skulptur und Architectur 18 (Mainz, 1999), 105, note 491;
- C. Pietrangeli, Scavi e scoperte di antichità sotto il Pontificio di Pio Sesto (Rome, 1958), 74;
- A. M. McCann, The portraits of Septimius Severus. Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 30 (1968), 168, no. 74 (bibl.), pl. 70.
- Location
- On display (Front Hall)
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2006-2007, 16 Nov-11 Feb, London, BM, The Past from Above
- Acquisition date
- 1805
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 1805,0703.104
