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Museum of Classical Archaeology Databases

Demosthenes, Herm

This head of the Greek orator Demosthenes (384 to 322 BCE) is a Roman copy and was mounted on a square pillar called a herm. The bronze original was set up in Athens. It had the distinction of being one of the earliest Greek portraits that was a lifelike representation, without idealisation

Number: 
500
Material: 
Marble
Location of Original: 

Munich, Glyptothek 292

Size: 
0.54m
Accession: 

Purchased from the Munich Technische Hochschule in 1884

References: 

Lippold: Griechische Plastik, 303 (n.1)
Furtwängler: Catalogue of the Munich Museum, 316
Furtwängler: Hundert Tafeln, 66
Walston: Catalogue of Casts in the Museum of Classical Archaeology (1889), 81, no.382

Date: 
Roman. Original: 280 or 279 BCE
Sculptor: 
Of original: Polyeuktos
Provenance: 

Found in the Circus of Maxentius in Rome

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