Adaptation of a Greek statue of the 3rd century B.C.
Surmounted by a portrait statuette of a philosopher. This statuette is a reduced copy of a Hellenistic original of the III century B.C.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Bronze statuette of a philosopher on a lamp stand
Period:Early Imperial, Augustan
Date:late 1st century BCE
Culture:Roman
Medium:Bronze
Dimensions:Overall: 10 3/4 in., 2.9kg (27.3 cm, 6.4lb.)
Classification:Bronzes
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1910
Accession Number:10.231.1
Said to have been found in Ostia Antica
[Until 1910, with Ludwig Pollak, Rome]; acquired in 1910, purchased from L. Pollak.
Left foot: [Until 1911, with Paul Hartwig, Rome]; acquired in 1911, purchased from P. Hartwig.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1911. "Statuette of Hermarchos." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 6(6): pp. 130–34.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1915. Greek, Etruscan and Roman Bronzes. no. 120, pp. 70–74, New York: Gilliss Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1917. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 155, fig. 98, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1927. Handbook of the Classical Collection. pp. 192–93, fig. 131, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1930. Handbook of the Classical Collection. pp. 192–93, fig. 131, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
McClees, Helen and Christine Alexander. 1933. The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans: As Illustrated in the Classical Collections, 5th ed. p. 61, fig. 76, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1936[1934]. A Guide to the Collections, Part 1: Ancient and Oriental Art, 2nd edn. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
McClees, Helen and Christine Alexander. 1941. The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans: As Illustrated in the Classical Collections, 6th ed. p. 61, fig. 76, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1950. The Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks, 3rd edn. pp. 84, 424, 427, figs. 230–31, 24, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 124, 263, pl. 103a, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Robertson, Martin and Cambridge University Press. 1975. A History of Greek Art, Vols. 1 and 2. p. 524, pl. 158b, Cambridge, England.
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1978. Antichnoe iskusstvo iz muzeia Metropoliten, Soedinennye Shtaty Ameriki: Katalog vystavki. no. 71, pl. 17, Moscow: Sovetskii Khudozhnik.
Reinsberg, Carola. 1980. Studien zur hellenistischen Toreutik: Die antiken Gipsabgüsse aus Memphis, Hildesheimer ägyptologische Beiträge, Vol. 9. pp. 137, 142, 155, n. 485, Hildesheim: Gerstenberg Verlag.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1987. Greece and Rome. p. 10, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Kozloff, Arielle and David Gordon Mitten. 1988. The Gods Delight : The Human Figure in Classical Bronze no. 26, pp. 164–59, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art.
Smith, Roland R.R. 1991. Hellenistic Sculpture: a handbook , World of Art. p. 35, fig. 24, New York: Thames and Hudson.
Haff, Ralf von den. 1994. Philosophenporträts des Früh- und Hochhellenismus, Biering and Brinkmann, ed. pp. 124 n. 58, 61; 135 n. 69, 71; 171 ff., 193 ns. 208–15, München.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 258, pp. 221, 455, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Bol, Peter C. 2007. Die Geschichte der antiken Bildhauerkunst III: Hellenistische Plastik. pp. 106f., 108, 110, 114, 122f., 126, 132, 135, 158, 166f., 175f., 179f., 187, pl. 130, Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern.
Daehner, Jens M. and Kenneth Lapatin. 2015. Potere e Pathos: Bronzi del Mondo Ellenistico p. 102–3, fig. 7.4, Firenze: Giunti.
Daehner, Jens M. and Kenneth Lapatin. 2015. Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World p. 102–3, fig. 7.4, Los Angeles, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum.
Zanker, Paul. 2016. Roman Portraits: Sculptures in Stone and Bronze in the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. no. 11, pp. 15, 42–45, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Zanker, Paul, Seán Hemingway, Christopher S. Lightfoot, and Joan R. Mertens. 2019. Roman Art : A Guide through the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Collection. no. 48, pp. 143, 144, New York: Scala Publishers.
Hemingway, Seán. 2021. How to Read Greek Sculpture. pp. 148, 151, fig. 56, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than 30,000 works ranging in date from the Neolithic period to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312.