Object Description
Rome, early 19th century, After the Antique
Bust of Socrates
Marble, on a circular marble socle
49 cm. / 19 ¼ ins high, overall
This fine neoclassical bust of Socrates is based on an ancient portrait of the Greek philosopher from the Villa Albani, Rome (inv. no. 1040), which was discovered in 1735 in the grounds of a villa in Tusculum, near Rome. It was subsequently acquired by Cardinal Allesandro Albani (1692-1779), described as the most ‘enthusiastic and spendthrift of eighteenth-century Roman art patrons’, for his villa-museum (now the Villa Albani-Torlonia) on the Via Salaria.
Presumably due to its relatively late discovery in the eighteenth century, there appear to be very few marble copies of the Albani Socrates from the late eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, with most modern busts of the philosopher being based on another ancient portrait in the Capitoline Museum, Rome (Sala dei Filosofi, inv. MC0508).
A plaster cast of the Albani Socrates, in the collection of the National Galleries, Scotland (acc. no. Albacini.40), was made in the late eighteenth century by the sculptor and restorer Carlo Albacini, whose Roman workshop was active between 1770-1813 and whose vast collection of plaster casts were sold by his son and assisstant, Filippo Albacini (1777-1858), in 1838. A lost marble based on the Albani bust is also known to have been carved in the Roman workshop of the Danish Neoclassical sculptor, Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844), circa 1805-06, although this was also more likely to have been a herm-shaped bust, like the original.
It seems likely that the present bust was carved in a Roman workshop in the early nineteenth century, possibly by a sculptor in the circle of Carlo or Filippo Albacini. The manner of carving, plastic modelling of the facial features and lightly-polished matt finish of the surface are all compatible with the severe, Hellenising style of sculpture present in Rome in the early nineteenth century, which marked the final phase of the Neoclassical movement begun by Antonio Canova.
Our bust is a somewhat free interpretation of the Albani Socrates, since it substitutes the rectangular herm shape for a more irregular, round truncation at the neck, with the head set on a base plate and socle typical of the period. The physiognomy of the philosopher, with his deeply furrowed brows, sunken cheeks and pug nose, is also rather exaggerated like in the original marble, suggesting that the sculptor may have studied the Albani bust first hand in Rome (the Albacini plaster cast, on the other hand, is flatter and less expressive of those strong facial features).
Socrates (c. 470-399 BC) was born in Athens a decade after the Persian Wars ended, at a time when the city was becoming the military, economic and intellectual superpower of Greece. The son of Sophroniscus, a stonemason, Socrates did not write any texts himself and his ideas and systems of thought are known mainly through contemporary Greek writers, most notably his student Plato. The question-and-answer approach Socrates takes to addressing abstract ideas or subjects in Plato’s dialogues is known as the Socratic method. These debates, which usually involved Socrates referring to a particular virtue and its relation to the subject in question, often ended in an impasse; Socrates was famous for proclaiming his ultimate ignorance in the oft-quoted paraphrase: “I know that I know nothing”.
As recounted in Plato’s Phaedo, in 399 BC Socrates was tried by the Athenian government, who accused him of impiety and of corrupting his young followers. He was found guilty and given the choice of renouncing his beliefs or of committing suicide by drinking hemlock, choosing the latter.