Bust of Socrates
- Title:
- Bust of Socrates
- Collection:
- Cornell Cast Collection
- Creator:
- Unknown (Roman copy)
Lysippos (Greek original) (original)
- Photographer:
- Mericle, Danielle
- Date:
- second half of the 1st c. AD (?) (Roman copy)
4th c. BCE (Greek original)
2009 (image)
- Site:
- possibly Italy (original)
- Location:
- Goldwin Smith Hall (Room 128), Cornell University
possibly Italy (original) - ID Number:
- CCC_0614
- Accession Number:
- 587
- File Name:
- CCC_0614.tif
- Original Measurements:
- 33.5 (H) cm (head and neck only)
- Culture:
- Roman, after Greek
- Style/Period:
- Roman Imperial, after Greek Late Classical or Early Hellenistic
- Work Type:
- casts (sculpture)
busts (sculpture) - Materials/Techniques:
- plaster cast (sculpture)
marble sculpture in the round (Roman copy)
bronze (Greek original) (original) - Subject:
- Socrates
- Image View Type:
- overall
- Image View Description:
- from front
- Measurement:
- 88.5 (with socle) x 73.5 (without socle) x 42 x 29 (centimeters, height x height x width x diameter)
- Description:
- This is a cast in bust form of a Type B portrait head of Socrates (Sokrates) housed in the Louvre. Socrates has small, thick-lidded eyes, a short, broad nose, and small lips. He has a long beard and his mid-length, wavy hair has receded significantly. Advancing age is indicated by the furrows in his forehead and the loose flesh around the cheekbones. The philosopher looks ahead or almost imperceptibly to his right. This cast was created as a bust
the original is a head that is worked at the neck for insertion into a body. The cast preserves a restoration to the tip of the nose, which has since been removed. Type B portraits of Socrates are believed to copy the now-lost bronze seated portrait statue of the philosopher made by Lysippos in the 4th century BCE, probably several decades after Socrates' death in 399 BCE. Diogenes Laertius (Lives of the Philosophers, II.5.43) writes in the third century CE that Lysippos' Socrates was erected in the Pompeion at Athens. - Notes:
- Items in the Cornell Cast Collection are meant for inventory and reference purposes. Metadata may not be complete in all cases.
no. MA 59 - Bibliography:
- Gisela Richter, The Portraits of the Greeks, vol. I (London: Phaidon Press, 1965), 113 no. 13, figs. 513, 516
- Repository:
- Cornell University (current)
Paris, Louvre (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.