






Various Properties
Lot 61*
A Roman marble head of a Philosopher
4 December 2025, 11:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£20,000 - £40,000
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Joanna van der Lande
Consultant

Siobhan Quin
Senior Specialist

Anna Marston
Associate Specialist
A Roman marble head of a Philosopher
Circa 1st Century A.D.
24cm high
24cm high
Footnotes
Provenance:
Private collection USA, acquired in 1939, by descent to the present owner.
This head is typical of portraits of Greek philosophers and orators of the 4th-3rd Century B.C. Aristotle's Physiognomonica outlined certain characteristics of the 'great-souled' man including the furrowed brow and deep-set eyes; other portraits of Epikouros, Demosthenes and Hermarchus from this period demonstrate the importance of such features. There is a similar head of a philosopher in the MFA Boston, acc. no. 1972.971, which is suggested to represent either Democritus or perhaps Hermarchus. These portraits were Roman copies after Greek originals.