GRAND TOURItalian, late 19th centuryBust of Pseudo-SenecaPatinated bronze over marble | unsigned, cast circa 1890An incredibly attractive Grand Tour cast of the Bust of Pseudo-Seneca. It is executed in bronze and is finished in a greenish black patina.It is cast after the original bust of antiquity found in 1754 at Herculaneum in the Villa of the Papyri, the home of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, father-in-law of Julius Caesar. The estate was buried in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The bust had been thought to be an image of Lucius Annaeus Seneca - Seneca the Younger - the famous Stoid philosopher and fabulously wealthy advisor to Nero. However, after a titled bust of Seneca was discovered with very different features, scholars now have various opinions on the attribution of the bust with most believing it to be an image of Hesiod or Aristophanes, while some also attribute it to Aesop, Apollonius of Rhodes, or Callimachus. The sculptor must have been very famous and the image of lasting quality, as forty copies of the bust made in antiquity have been found. It is incredibly dramatic, the emmaciated man looking forward with elements of sorrow, determination and haggard exhaustion as his unkempt hair furls chaotically around his forehead.

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