About the Work

Head of a bearded male, possibly Zeus or Poseidon, but most likely Asclepius, god of medicine, carved from marble with added use of a hand drill. His luxuriant mane of hair is arranged in thick, flame-like locks which sweep upwards and off his forehead in layers from a centre parting, and fall around his face in voluted waves. His heavily lidded eyes gaze straight forwards and have incised irises and drilled crescentic pupils.

There is a deep crease on his forehead, his nose is straight, and his full, slightly parted lips, are framed by a centrally divided beard of overlapping curls. Broken diagonally across the face with some restoration to the lips, the upper right side of the anastole-like hair restored.

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Provenance

Axel G. Weber, Cologne, Germany
Private collection, Germany; acquired from the above in 1977

Literature

Published:
22. Deutsche Kunst und Antiquitäten Messe München 1977, p.276

Comparanda:
Compare Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (Munich, 1974), p.656, Asklepios 274. Also see a statue of Asclepius and Telesphoros in the Antalya Archaeology Museum, Turkey