Vergilius?Marble.
Late 1st century BCE — early 2nd century CE.
Inv. No. 10163.
Rome, Vatican Museums, Gregorian Profane Museum
Photo by Sergey Sosnovskiy
A10. Ennius-Vergil New Comedy Poet Type (5 examples).
(5) Vatican, Museo Gregoriano Profano ex Lateranese inv. 10163.
No provenance. Marble head: H. 34 cm; HdH. 23 cm.
Restorations: tip of nose, back of head, right part of neck. Surface much abraded.
A. Giuliano, Catalogo dei Ritratti del Museo Profano Lateranense (1957), no. 5, pls. 3, 4 (Roman copy second half first century CE); Helbig4 I no. 1113 (v. Heintze).
A bibliography of identification of portrait type is as follows: K. Schefold, Gnomon 35 (1936), 811—812 (the original belongs at the high point of early Hellenistic portraiture, second quarter third century, near the Menander, and perhaps represents Philemon, the New Comedy poet); V. Poulsen, Vergil, Opus Nobile vol. 12, (Bremen 1959) puts together four copies of the type, the two in Copenhagen and two in the Vatican, and suggests the identification of Vergil; H. v. Heintze, “Neue Beiträge zu V. Poulsen’s Vergil,” RM 67 (1960), 103—110 (adds heads in Leipzig and the Conservatori, Helbig4 II no. 1466, a herm from the Auditorium of Maecenas on the Esquiline, see cat B 87, G. Hafner, Das Bildnis des Q. Ennius (Baden-Baden 1968) renames type; H. von Heintze, Gymnasium 79 (1972), 466-468 (review of G. Hafner, Das Bildnis des Q. Ennius — good discussion of double herm combinations); J. C. Balty, in Festoen opgedragen aan A. N. Zadoks-Josephus Jitta bij haar zeventigste verjaardag (Groningen, 1976), 51—52 (list of double herm couplings, which favors the identification of Poulsen’s Vergil as a Greek rather than a Roman); Stewart, Attika, 84-85 [grouped together with other heads that are assigned to a court sculptor of Augustus, last quarter first century BCE; personality of sculptor first defined by Poulsen, RA (1968), 267—278]; V. Hausmann, “Zum Bildnis der Dichters Theokrit,” STELE. Tomos eis Mnemen N. Kontholeontos (1979), 516—524 (Theokritos); E. Berger, Eikones. Festschrift Haus Jucker (AntK-BH 12; Basel, 1980), 73—75 (second-century-BCE original, perhaps representing a poet in the circle of Scipio Aemelianus, e.g., Lucilius); Giuliani, Bildnis und Botschaft, 163—189 (original of mid-second century BCE, i.e., representing the poet Ennius); H. von Heintze, Gymnasium 94 (1987), 481—497 (review of the scholarship on this portrait type); D. Hertel, BJb (1988), 593 (review of Giuliani, proposes date of original ca. 100 BCE. i. e., the beginning of the first century BCE rather than Giuliani’s mid-second-century date); K. Fittschen, AA (1991), 256, Fig. 3 (surely a poet); G. Hafner. Bildlexicon antiker Personen (1993), s.v. Ennius; Zanker, Mask of Socrates, 143—145, Fig. 78 (portrait of a Hellenistic poet; Roman copy of a statue of the second century BCE).
Sheila Dillon
