Epicurus, 341-270 BCE, was one of the foremost Athenian philosophers. He taught that as the universe and mankind were made by accident, a good life is one of pleasure; by pleasure, however, he meant privacy, austerity and spiritual harmony, not indulgence. Most of his writings are lost.
This copy is one of several Roman replicas of a lost Hellenistic original. It shows Epicurus as a gaunt, mature man; contemporary writers sometimes described him as being in poor health
Rome, Capitoline Museum, Stanza dei Filosofi 64
Purchased in 1884 from the Paris Beaux Arts? (Reporter).
There was a donation by General Reed, chargé d’affaires at Athens, Feb 10 1877 (but original was said to be in Athens, — Reporter, no.544)
Lippold: Griechische Plastik, 414 (n.13)
Stuart-Jones: Catalogue of the Capitoline Museum (1912), 244, pl. 57
Hekler: Greek and Roman Portraits, 100-101a (replicas in Vatican and Naples)
Delbrück: Antike Porträts, pl. 25 (replica in New York)
Arndt & Amelung: Photografische Einzelaufnahmen Antiker Skulpturen, 3269-70 (replica in Villa Albani)
Walston: Catalogue of Casts in the Museum of Classical Archaeology (1889), 115, no.605 (says that this is a cast of the Villa Albani replica)
Reporter: 19 June 1885, 895, no.542(?)
Pollitt: Art in the Hellenistic Age, 66, pl. 60 (replica in New York)
