Italian, circa 1800

The present bust is a reproduction of the head of the full-length marble and bronze antiquity at Versailles which has been accepted as a Greek work, contemporary with the 4th century BC sculptor Lysippus. The antique model is first mentioned in Rome in 1556 and according to Ulisse Aldrovandi was headless at the time, describing it as ‘a headless statue, dressed in the Moorish style, and it is a Diana’ (Haskell & Penny, p. 579). In 1638, it is recorded once again in the Borghese collection, and it would later be counted among the many antiquities acquired by Napoleon I.

The author of the bronze face that was added to complete the missing ancient elements has not been identified with certainty. Attributions to Bernini or Algardi have frequently been proposed, though without firm evidence. It seems more likely that the reconstruction of the face was carried out by the French sculptor Nicolas Cordier, who was active in Rome in the early seventeenth century (ibid., p. 580).

This somewhat exotic subject already enjoyed significant critical success in the seventeenth century, a reputation that continued to grow throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Examples in England can be found at Stourhead (inv. no. NT 732908) and the Lady Lever Art Gallery (inv. no. LL 145). Scheemakers and Cheere also made plaster casts.

RELATED LITERATURE

F. Haskell, N. Penny (revised by A. Aymonino and E. Dodero), Taste and the Antique, The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900, Turnhout, 2024 (first published London, 1981), vol 1, cat. 95, pp. 579 – 583