Footnotes

• Provenance:
  with Merrin Gallery, New York.
  Private collection, USA, acquired from the above in 1994.
  
  It is significant that the foot is represented wearing a Greek trochades sandal, a traveller's sandal with solid sides and back and a flat sole, rather than a contemporary Roman type. A similar example of sandal is worn by a monumental Roman bronze statue in the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, probably portraying the Emperor Marcus Aurelius as a philosopher, acc. no. 1986.5. In the Cleveland example, the Emperor wears a simple chiton and himation with the Greek trochades footwear. The details of the Emperor's bronze, hollow cast, sandal with raised platform are remarkably similar to the present lot, suggesting that this lot might similarly come from an Emperor-Philosopher statue. Like Marcus Aurelius, other Emperors including Hadrian and Septimius Severus chose to portray themselves as learned philosophers, as opposed to generals or administrators.