statue
- Museum number
- 1805,0703.50
- Description
-
Marble head from a statue of Jupiter. The top of the head and the bust are modern.
- Production date
- 150-200 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 52 centimetres
-
Weight: 45 kilograms (estimate)
-
Width: 26 centimetres
-
Depth: 27 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- Cook 2013, nr. 299:
Townley's description; ‘A Head of Jupiter; the hair of the head and beard is executed in an early and peculiarly high finished style of sculpture. purchased at the sale of the collection of the late Duke of St Albans’ (1804 Parlour Catalogue, library 11). Townley’s efforts to learn where the head had been found were unsuccessful (Specimens of Ancient Sculpture. Selected from Different Collections in Great Britain, by the Society of Dilettanti (London, 1809-1835)).
Bought by Townley from Phillips the auctioneer at the sale of the collection of the Duke of St Albans for £47.5s. or 45 Guineas (Wigan Accounts). In his diary for 9 June 1798, Townley wrote: ‘Went to the Duke of St Albans sale of Marbles. bought head of Jupiter, two aras, head of philosopher, a fluted vase with an Inscription & small inscription for 59£’ (TY 1/10). In his record of payment on 11 June (Wigan Accounts), however, one of the ‘aras’ and the small inscription are not specifically mentioned. They may perhaps be included as the ‘&c’ following the ‘fluted vase of Victor’, but I have been unable to identify either object in the collection, and it is possible that Townley decided not to keep them. Two other items that had been brought to England by the Duke of St Albans were purchased by Townley in December 1798 from a Mr Wilson.
Date:
I AD (Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae).
Drawings:
* Townley drawing 2010,5006.142, signed ‘A. Tendi del.’. Tendi was drawing in Townley’s house during July 1798 (TY 1/10).
Bibliography:
- Synopsis of the Contents of the British Museum (1808), VI.15;
- Specimens of Ancient Sculpture. Selected from Different Collections in Great Britain, by the Society of Dilettanti (London, 1809-1835) I, pl. 31;
- Ancient Marbles of the British Museum, X, pl. 1; A Guide to the Graeco-Roman Sculptures in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 2 vols. (London, 1874 [1892] and 1876), I, no. 122;
- A. H. Smith, A Catalogue of Sculpture in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum, Vol. III (London 1904), 1, no. 1515;
- Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, VIII, 436 s.v. Zeus/Iuppiter no. 157*.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2017-2018 19 Oct-18 Feb, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, Imagining the divine: Art and the Rise of the World Religions
- Acquisition date
- 1805
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 1805,0703.50