Colossal Head of Apollo on a Modern Bust

Roman art

The colossal male head with a pronounced double chin and large protruding eyes, small mouth with fleshy parted lips, low triangular forehead framed by a thick mass of wavy hair, originally flowing down the sides of the neck in long locks, is set on a modern female bust. It originally belonged to a statue of Apollo portrayed as a cithara player; the model is known from numerous replicas and variants scattered throughout the Mediterranean, which critics generally agree is the work of the sculptor Timarchides I, created in 179 BCE as a statue for worship in the Roman temple of Apollo “in circo”. Technical and stylistic elements place the Borghese example in the Antonine age.

Object details

Commentary

The Inventario of the Borghese Fideicommissary of 1833 bears witness to the presence of the bust in Room III already in the first years of the new collection: interpreted as a female head “perhaps of Diana”, it is described by Nibby as “Lucilla wife of Lucius Verus”. Venturi, however, correctly interpreted it as a male face.

The colossal male head, restored in the lower part of the hair and various details of the face, is characterised by florid carnality and roundness, accentuated by the pronounced double chin and large protruding eyes with pupils incised in modern times. The small mouth has fleshy, parted lips between which teeth can be glimpsed; the low triangular forehead is framed by a thick mass of wavy hair, originally flowing down the sides of the neck in long locks, now broken up. The soft, feminine features of the face – in which Apollo as a cithara player can be recognised – probably compelled the modern restorer to place the head on a female bust.

The statue originally depicted a half-naked Apollo, standing on his right leg, wearing a cloak that covered the lower half of his body; his head was turned towards the cithara resting on a pillar to the right, while his right arm was raised over his head in an attitude of repose. The type is known through numerous replicas and variants throughout the Mediterranean, including the one from Cyrene (British Museum, inv. 1871.7-25) that gives the series its name. Critics generally agree that it is“Apollo qui citharam tenet”, a Neo-Attic work by the sculptor Timarchides I, created in 179 BCE as a statue for worship in the Roman temple of Apollo “in circo“ (Pliny, N.H. XXXIV, 34) on the occasion of the restoration of the construction ordered by Marcus Fulvius Nobiliore or Marcus  Aemilius Lepidus. There, late classical motifs, derived from the works of Agoracritus, Euphranor and Scopas, were blended with Asiatic exuberance. Not all scholars, however, identify the Athenian sculptor’s creation in the Cyrene-like Apollo (Simon 1984, pp. 366-367 recognises it in another citation; Flashar 1992, p. 128 with a new review of the replicas). According to others, the model is instead an Antonine-era creation, given the concentration of replicas in the 2nd century CE and the presence of the Cyrene Typus in coins minted under Commodus (Martin 1987, pp. 64-86; for a summary of the history of studies see Pafumi 2009; Ghisellini 2017).

The Borghese copy is similar, in the way the hair is depicted, to the statue from the Farnese Collection in Naples (MANN, inv. 6262; Pafumi 2009); in both cases, the drill technique suggests they be dated to the Antonine age.

Jessica Clementi