Object Description
Italian, 19th century
Pair of busts of Cicero & Demosthenes, After the Antique
Marble, the socle plates inscribed: CICERO in Latin and ‘Demosthenes’ in Greek
52 cm. / 20 ½ ins high overall and 53.5 cm. / 21 ins high
This fine pair of Neoclassical marble busts depict the famous ancient Roman and Greek orators, Cicero and Demosthenes.
The first bust depicts Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 – 43 BC), one of the great intellectuals of Republican Rome. Cicero is acknowledged as one of the finest legal and political orators of all time, whose inspiration came from his love and deep study of ancient Greek philosophy. Of the extant ancient portraits of Cicero, the present head is probably carved after the bust now in Apsley House, London, which was acquired by the Duke of Wellington in 1816 from the Mattei Collection, Rome.
The second marble bust in this pair depicts the famous Greek orator Demosthenes (384-322 BC), who led Athens in its uprisings against Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great. Of the extant portraits of Demosthenes, the present bust appears to be based on a Roman herm bust in Munich (Glyptothek, inv. 292), which was discovered in the Circus Maxentius, Rome in 1825.
During the Renaissance and Enlightenment, Cicero and Demosthenes’ names were synonymous with eloquence and political freedom.
Both busts were carved in the same Italian workshop in the second half of the nineteenth century.