Roman copy of a Greek original. This seated figure of Ares, the Roman god of war, was much more famous in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries than today. The art historian Winckelmann praised it highly, and numerous copies were made for wealthy art collectors, along with many smaller replicas as cheaper souvenirs.
The small figure at the god’s feet is the child Eros, but it is most probably an invention of the seventeenth century restorer, the Baroque sculptor Bernini
Rome, National Museum Terme 156
Purchased (from Brucciani?) in 1884
Lippold: Griechische Plastik, 289 (n.11), pl. 102.2
Richter: Sculpture & Sculptors of the Greeks (1950), 276
Lawrence: Classical Sculpture (1928), 256-
Picard: Archéologie Grècque; Sculpture III (1948), fig. 321
Brunn-Bruckmann: Denkmäler Griechischer und Römischer Skulptur, pl. 388
From the Ludovisi Collection
