The Arundel Head is a
Hellenistic
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
bronze portrait of a dramatist or king from
Asia Minor, now kept in the
British Museum. Dating to the 2nd-1st centuries BC, the head once belonged to (and takes its name from) the famous English collector of classical antiquities,
Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel.
Description
The head is all that remains of a life-size bronze
statue
A statue is a free-standing sculpture in which the realistic, full-length figures of persons or animals are carved or cast in a durable material such as wood, metal or stone. Typical statues are life-sized or close to life-size; a sculpture t ...
. The artist has realistically conveyed the worn features of an old man, including a wrinkled forehead,
almond
The almond (''Prunus amygdalus'', syn. ''Prunus dulcis'') is a species of tree native to Iran and surrounding countries, including the Levant. The almond is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated seed of this tree. Within the genus ...
-shaped eyes and pouting mouth, which gives the portrait an air of power and authority. The hair of this bronze
masterpiece
A masterpiece, ''magnum opus'' (), or ''chef-d’œuvre'' (; ; ) in modern use is a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or a work of outstanding creativity, ...
is tied down in a ribbon, which suggests it may have portrayed a poet. Once thought to represent the ancient Greek writer
Homer, it is currently considered to personify either the ancient Greek playwright
Sophocles or a
Macedonian
Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia.
Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to:
People Modern
* Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North M ...
King.
Provenance
Recent research has suggested that the ''Arundel Head'' may have originally been found in
Smyrna, the ancient name for
Izmir in Turkey. The bronze sculpture was brought to England from
Constantinople in the early seventeenth century as part of the
collection
Collection or Collections may refer to:
* Cash collection, the function of an accounts receivable department
* Collection (church), money donated by the congregation during a church service
* Collection agency, agency to collect cash
* Collectio ...
of Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel. Subsequently, it came into the possession of Dr
Richard Mead and later
Brownlow Cecil, 9th Earl of Exeter, who donated it to the British Museum in 1760, making it one of the earliest pieces of classical antiquities to enter the national collection.
British Museum Collection
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Gallery
File:Arundel Head (2).JPG, Side view of the head
References
Further reading
*Henry Beauchamp Walters: British Museum. Select bronzes, Greek, Roman, and Etruscan, in the Departments of Antiquities, London 1915
*C.C. Mattusch, Classical bronzes (Cornell University Press, 1996)
*S. Walker, Greek and Roman portraits (London, The British Museum Press, 1995)
*L. Burn, The British Museum book of Greek and Roman Art, revised edition (London, The British Museum Press, 1999)
{{British Museum
Ancient Greek and Roman sculptures in the British Museum
Statues
Bronze sculptures in London
Hellenistic sculpture