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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1920.44.204
Title
Head of a Hellenistic Ruler
Classification
Sculpture
Work Type
sculpture, head
Date
c. 150 BCE-50 BCE
Period
Hellenistic period
Culture
Greek
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/292370

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Marble from the Greek islands or Western Asia Minor
Dimensions
10 cm (3 15/16 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Miss Elizabeth Gaskell Norton, Boston, MA and Miss Margaret Norton, Cambridge, MA (by 1920), gift; to the Fogg Museum, 1920.

Note: The Misses Norton were daughters of Charles Elliot Norton (1827-1908).

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of the Misses Norton
Accession Year
1920
Object Number
1920.44.204
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Published Catalogue Text: Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums , written 1990
44

Head of a Hellenistic Ruler

The head is broken through the back vertically, and the nose, chin, and neck have been further damaged, as well as the area above the left eye.

With a ruler's or perhaps a philosopher's rolled fillet in the hair, this full-faced older man might be identified as one of the Attalids or one of the kings of Bithynia. Another head, with a bit of draped bust fashioned for insertion, has been dated around 250 BC and may be an Attalid. It appears to be earlier than the Harvard example, but perhaps the two meet some time around the outset of the second century BC; the two are much alike (Bastet, Brunsting, 1982, p. 205, nol. 378, pl. 112). The small head in the Department of Classical Studies, Duke University (1966.1), has been published as possibly Ptolemy III Euergetes (246 to 221 BC), and is said to come from Egypt. This is not the same man as the Harvard head, but it has similar visual style (Ackland Arts Center, 1973, no. 7 [M. F. Scott]).

Circular arguments are common and dangerous in the identification of Hellenistic rulers, but G. M. A. Richter has suggested as a possible Ptolemy III Euergetes a statue from the Arundel collection (thus from Asia Minor or the Greek islands) in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; this almost complete, himation-clad statue could have represented the same ruler as the small head at Harvard, which must have once belonged to a small statue (Richter, 1965, III, p. 263, figs. 1815-1817).

Cornelius Vermeule and Amy Brauer

Publication History

  • Cornelius C. Vermeule III and Amy Brauer, Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 61, no. 44

Exhibition History

  • 32Q: 3620 University Study Gallery, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 09/02/2023 - 12/30/2023

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu