Portrait Herm of Demosthenes
- Title:
- Portrait Herm of Demosthenes
- Collection:
- Cornell Cast Collection
- Creator:
- Unknown (Roman copy)
Polyeuktos (Greek original)
- Photographer:
- Mericle, Danielle
- Date:
- ca. 1890-1900
ca. 2nd-3rd c. CE
ca. 280 BCE (Greek original)
- Site:
- Circus Maxentius, Rome, Italy (discovery site of Roman copy, 1825)
Hellenistic original probably produced at Athens (original) - Location:
- Warehouse (formerly Goldwin Smith Hall Room G55)
Circus Maxentius, Rome, Italy (discovery site of Roman copy, 1825)
Hellenistic original probably produced at Athens (original) - ID Number:
- CCC_0692
- Accession Number:
- Sage no. 238
676 - File Name:
- CCC_0692.tif
- Original Measurements:
- 189 (H)cm
- Culture:
- Roman, after Greek
- Style/Period:
- Roman Imperial, after Hellenistic
- Work Type:
- casts (sculpture)
- Materials/Techniques:
- plaster cast (sculpture)
marble sculpture in the round (Roman copy)
bronze (Greek original) (original) - Subject:
- Demosthenes
- Image View Type:
- overall
- Image View Description:
- from front
- Measurement:
- 52 x 32 x 27 (centimeters, height x width x diameter)
- Description:
- This is a cast of the upper portion of a portrait herm of the 4th c. BCE Athenian orator Demosthenes housed in the Munich Glyptothek. The original is a Roman partial copy (head mounted on a herm) in marble of a bronze statue of Demosthenes made by Polyeuktos and erected in the Athenian Agora in 280 BCE. Numerous copies of this portrait type are extant. Demosthenes looks straight ahead with thick upper and lower lids. His short hair is arranged in patterned waves
his hair line has receded moderately. The orator's beard is short and well-groomed. Demosthenes' seriousness is emphasized by his intense gaze, by his heavily furrowed brow, by the emphatic wrinkles on his forehead, and by his firmly shut, unsmiling lips. Anatomical features included here are the collarbone and cleft of the chest bone. The cast preserves restorations to the nose and ears that have been removed from the original. - Notes:
- Items in the Cornell Cast Collection are meant for inventory and reference purposes. Metadata may not be complete in all cases.
no. 292 - Bibliography:
- Gisela Richter, The Portraits of the Greeks, vol. II (London: Phaidon Press, 1965), 215-223, esp. 220 no. 36, figs. 1476-1477, 1481
- Repository:
- Cornell University (current)
Munich, Glyptothek (original) - Collecting Program:
- Cornell Collections of Antiquities
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- The images in the Cornell Collection of Antiquities: Casts are protected by copyright, and the copyright holders are their creators, generally Cornell University Library, Annetta Alexandridis, and Verity Platt. This collection of plaster casts owned by Cornell University was photographed by Cornell University Library, Alexandridis, Platt, and Andreya L. Mihaloew from 2010-2015, with funding from a Digital Collections in Arts and Sciences Grant to Annetta Alexandridis. Cornell is providing access to the materials for research and personal use. The written permission of any copyright and other rights holders is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use that extends beyond what is authorized by fair use and other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item. Please contact Annetta Alexandridis and Verity Platt for more information about this collection, or to request permission to use these images.