A Roman Marble Head of Meleager, circa 1st Century A.D.

Paul Hartwig (1859-1919), Rome, based on two undated photographs in the archive of Paul Arndt (1865-1937), Erlangen university, with handwritten note “Hartwig”

Colonel Frederick Beddington (1896-1979), prior to 1946 (Christie’s, London, March 16th, 1977, no. 233, illus.)

acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Jacqueline Chittenden and Charles Seltman, Greek Art. A Commemorative Catalogue of an Exhibition held in 1946 at the Royal Academy Burlington House London, London, 1947, p. 37, no. 165, pl. 53 (https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.74100/page/n126/mode/1up)

Carlos Picón, Classical Antiquities from Private Collections in Great Britain. A Loan Exhibition in Aid of the Ashmole Archive, Sotheby’s, exh. cat., London, 1986, p. 42, no. 45, pl. 8

Cornelius C. Vermeule III and Amy Brauer, Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, Mass., 1990, p. 36, no. 20 (https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/292052)

Sascha Kansteiner, “Die spätklassische Meleager-Statue: Überlegungen zu ihrer Rekonstruktion und Rezeption,“ Bonner Jahrbücher, vol. 223, 2023, p. 114, no. 48

The present head replicates a 4th-century Greek statuary type known from almost fifty other copies and representing the hero Meleager, leader of the Kalydonian boar hunt. The statue’s most complete Roman copy is in the Vatican (Kansteiner cit., p. 112, no. 18; arachne.dainst.org/entity/1079106) and has been one of the most admired classical sculptures since its discovery in the 16th century. For casts of other Roman heads of this type see https://skd-online-collection.skd.museum/Details/Index/1236671 and https://skd-online-collection.skd.museum/Details/Index/1236744. In a recent study, Kansteiner (op. cit., p. 83ff.) emphasizes the attribution of the Greek original to Skopas and highlights the complex reception of the type in the Roman period.

Paul Hartwig was a German archaeologist and art dealer living in Rome and best known for his work about Attic vase painting (R. Lullies and W. Schiering, eds., Archäologenbildnisse: Porträts und Kurzbiographien von Klassischen Archäologen deutscher Sprache. Mainz, 1988, pp. 130-131).