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Greek Head in the Possession of T. Humphry Ward, Esq.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Extract
The Greek head of which four different views are given on Plate V. 1, 2, and in Figs. 1 and 2 comes originally from the Borghese Palace whence it was acquired previous to the great sale. It is now the property of Mr. Humphry Ward, to whom I owe very sincere thanks for permission to publish it in this Journal. When the head came into Mr. Ward's hands it was tilted upwards at a very unpleasing angle and restored with a nose totally out of keeping with the style and proportions of the face: disfigurements which perhaps account for its neglect by the many archaeologists who must have seen it in its old Roman home. Even in that condition however, a close examination of the treatment of the hair and the eyes showed this acquisition of Mr. Ward's to be nothing less than a Greek original of the first half of the fifth century. In effect, when Mr. Hamo Thornycroft had mounted the head at a proper angle and replaced the old plaster nose by one more in keeping with the general character of the face, the full beauty of the head soon became apparent. Thus restored, the head was exhibited during the spring and summer of 1893 at the Burlington Fine Arts Club. I saw it there immediately on my return from Rome and was not only confirmed in my belief that the work was an original but I was also struck with its likeness to the ‘Aphrodite’ on the central slab of the now famous throne in the Museo Boncompagni-Ludovisi, and was thus led to connect it with that monument and a whole series of kindred works.
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- Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1894
References
1 Helbig, Führer durch die Oeffentl. Samml. in Rom, no. 886. Published by Visconti, C. L., Bull. della Comm. archeol. comunale di Roma, 1887Google Scholar, tav. xv. xvi., and by Petersen, , Röm. Mittheil. vol. vii. 1892Google Scholar, taf. ii. (pp. 32–80) and Antike Denkmäler Bd. ii. (1891—92) 6, 7.
2 The ears, which are of normal size, appear on the plate absurdly enlarged, through the fault of the photograph.
3 See Furtwängler, 's remarks and the numerous examples of head-dress he quotes, Meisterwerke der Griechischen Plastik p. 33, 34Google Scholar.
4 Attributed by Furtwängler, to the school of Kritios and Nesiotes, see 50th Winckelmanns-programm, p. 132Google Scholar.
5 This date has been almost universally admitted. Only C. L. Visconti, who was the first to publish the reliefs (loc. cit.), described them as works of the ‘archaistic’ school, a view however which that distinguished archaeologist has probably discarded by now. Since the publication in 1889 of Hauser's Die neu Attischen Reliefs, it has become possible to distinguish between the genuine archaic, genuine copies of the archaic (Pasiteles and his school), and that curious ‘mischkunst,’ consisting of combinations and permutations of heterogeneous art forms, that marks the works of the Sosibios-Salpion-Pontios group. The notion that the throne is a copy is of course out of the question; no such perfection of modelling, or accuracy and distinctness of detail (notice in especial the fall of the draperies of the Horai over the arms of Aphrodite) can be found in copyist's work. As to the possibilities of the throne being archaistic, the directness with which the story is told and the total absence of mannerism are sufficient evidence that the reliefs are removed by centuries from those self-conscious yet often senseless mimicries of an older art which Hauser (loc. cit. p. 178) has so severely but so deservedly criticized. There is still another sort of archaistic art, which Hauser indicated (p. 168), and which Furtwängler has since brilliantly expounded in his Meisterwerke: the archaistic in this case was no last outburst of a decaying art, it was merely a tendency to conservatism that coexisted with more progressive methods. In a sense Kalamis himself, as Hauser has shown, might be called archaistic because of a certain tenaciousness to the ways of an older generation that marks him and his school. This archaistic note never quite died out, it makes itself felt now less, now more strongly; Furtwängler has well shown how it dominated artists like Kallimachos and Alkamenes during one phase at least of their career. We thus obtain a considerable margin of time within which to date the reliefs of the throne, but Petersen's analysis of their artistic affinities (it would be mere waste of time to retail them here) as well as the connexion he points out between the Birth of Aphrodite on the throne and the same scene on the basis of the Olympian Zeus can leave no doubt that the throne is of the transitional period, i.e. of about 475 to 460 B.C. When I read the above paper before the Hellenic Society, Mr. A. S. Murray raised the ‘archaistic’ question, and expressed it as his opinion that the throne was the work of a late epoch. In spite of his high authority I feel compelled to adhere to the opinion I have expressed. Mr. Murray further pointed out that the treatment of the hair in statues like the Hestia or the Apollos differed markedly from that of the head published here. On the throne, however (Mr. Murray fully admitted an intimate connexion between it and the head), the veiled figure on the right arm wears a short thick fringe of hair like the Hestia, while the Aphrodite of the central slab has, as already noted, long front hair. The artist of the throne, at any rate, was not limited to one method of treatment.
6 
as Petersen appropriately quotes.
7 Helbig, Führer no. 886, inclines to interpret the central scene either as the return of Kore from the underworld, or as the rising of a fountain-nymph to the face of the Earth (cf. Robert, , Arch. Märchen p. 179)Google Scholar. Bloch, L., in Roscher, 's Lexikon vol. ii. p. 1379Google Scholar (sub voc. Kora), also thinks the central slab represents the 
of Persephone.
Wolters, , Ἐφημ. ἀρχαιολ. 1893Google Scholar, oddly enough explains the central slab as a scene of childbirth 
Visconti loc. cit. thinks the several scenes relate to the Eleusinian mysteries.
8 Petersen, p. 53, states that Prof. Furtwängler had arrived independently at the same interpretation.
9 Galaxidi silver relief, Petersen loc. cit. fig. ix. and Gaz. Archéologique 1879, pl. 19.
10 Cf. the similar head of Aphrodite on Corinthian drachms, Brit. Mus. cat. Corinth, Pl. II. nos. 8, 9, hemidrachm no. 12. The colossal Aphrodite Ludovisi would be an example of long hair and uncovered head (see Roscher, p. 411), were it not that Petersen (loc. cit. p. 73) has shown that formerly her head was probably covered with a drapery of bronze.
11 Cf. Kalkmann, , Die Proportionen des Gesichts in der Griechischen Kunst (1893), p. 83Google Scholar.
12 Arch. Epigr. Mittheilungen aus Oesterreich-Ungarn, v. (1881), ‘Die Daidaliden,’ p. 36.