Estimate

20.000 - 40.000

Session 2

16 December 2024

Hammer Price

Description

Bust of a Roman
Various marbles and coloured stones
Scagliola stand
(restoration)

Height: 90 cm (busto) Height: 205 cm (total)

Category

Sculpture

Additional Information

Provenance:
Former Dukes of Palmela collection

Bust of Romam Emperor,Late 17th Century

The busts of Roman emperors from the Archbishop of Braga, Dom Luís de Sousa (1637-1690), are described in detail in the inventory of his belongings (Instituição e vínculo das Fazendas), which was written on June 22, 1683. Among the listed sculptures, there is a list of 16 half-length busts of emperors, 12 of which are the same size and 4 smaller in dimensions. In the first case, this is undoubtedly a complete series of the “Twelve Caesars.” The literary model for these rulers was The Life of the Caesars (Vita Caesarum), published by Gaius Suetonius in the early 2nd century AD. It was during the 16th century that Italy began decorating palaces with busts of these emperors. Most of the portraits were made in the modern era, however, the finest series from the 16th century also include Roman heads and sometimes busts, restored and adapted by modern sculptors.
The three busts in the Palmela collection are dated to the late 17th century not only by the aforementioned inventory, which describes all the different types of marbles and their colors, but also by the form of the busts. At the Villa Borghese museum in Rome, two earlier series are exhibited: one created by Giovan Battista della Porta in the early 17th century (before 1609) and another by Tommaso Fedele from 16195. Although the busts in these series
are larger and heavier, following the ancient models from the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, the busts from the Calhariz estate (Sesimbra) do not conceal their decorative Baroque shapes. The way different colors are mixed for decorative reasons also represents a typical feature of sculpture from the late 17th and 18th centuries.
It is much more difficult to determine the workshop or location where these pieces were made. According to the inventory, the Founder (Luís de Sousa) brought the sculptures from Rome, where he served as Ambassador to the Holy See between 1675 and 1683. The busts belong to a group of monuments that have not attracted much scientific attention until today. Due to the lack of published texts, it is currently hard to find exact parallels, which undoubtedly must exist. The busts, made of white marble and so finely polished that they almost appear to be porcelain, are of good manufacture. The models used by the workshop to sculpt the emperors' features were certainly not the best, which leads us to think the workshop was outside of Rome, because in 17th-century Rome, artists were well acquainted with the iconography of Roman emperors. It could have been a workshop from Northern Italy, for example, Genoa, which during this period was a center of sculptural production exporting many works to the Iberian Peninsula. A special feature is the pupils framed by carved grooves. It was in the mid-2nd century AD, with the portraits of Emperor Marcus Aurelius and his family, that eyes began to be drawn this way. The busts from the Palmela collection undoubtedly represent emperors from earlier periods, meaning this feature was executed by a modern sculptor.

text adapted from the original, written by Maria de Sousa H. Campilho, written for the catalogue of the exhibition “Uma família de colecionadores- Poder e cultura"