The Pseudo-Seneca is a Roman bronze bust of the late 1st century BC that was discovered in the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum in 1754, the finest example of about two dozen examples depicting the same face. It was originally believed to depict Seneca the Younger, the notable Roman philosopher, because its emaciated features were supposed to reflect his Stoic philosophy. However, modern scholars agree it is likely a fictitious portrait, probably intended for either Hesiod or Aristophanes. It is thought that the original example was a lost Greek bronze of . The bust is conserved in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.
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History The type of this bust was first given its identification as a "genuine" contemporary portrait of Seneca by Theodor Galle, called Gallaeus, in an Antwerp republication of Fulvio Orsini's Imagines et Elogia Virorum Illustrium et Eruditor ex Antiquis Lapidibus et Nomismatib[us]...Printed in Rome, 1570. Gallaeus' title was Illustrium Imagines ex Antiquis Marmoribus Nomismatib[us] et Gemmis Expressae... (Antwerp 1598). Noted by Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique: the Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900 (1981), p 52 and note 67. at a time when the exemplary image of the great man was more inspiring than the quality and character of the work of art that embodied it. By the 17th century, about a dozen examples of the intense and haggard "Pseudo-Seneca" had been discovered, and as many more have been discovered since.Haskell and Penny, Taste and the Antique: the Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900 (1981), p 52.
Following the example of Cicero, who had decorated his study with busts, or of the imagines illustrium that peopled the villa at Sorrento of Pollius Felix, described by Statius,Silvae 2.2, discussed by Claudia J. Hough, "The Surrentine Villa of Pollius Felix" (on-line text). gentlemen and scholars of the 16th and 17th centuriesFulvio Orsini's Imagines et elogia virorum illustrium (Rome, 1569), Paolo Giovio's "Giovio Series", Jean-Jacques Boissard's Icones Virorum Illustrium (1597) and Antonio Francesco Gori's Imagines virorum illustrium et deorum (1731-32) are familiar exemplars of the perennial cultural theme. were avid for examples of the great writers of Classical Antiquity constantly before their eyes: "the learned all over Europe looked with awe and devotion at the Stoic philosopher, emaciated, even uncouth, disdainful of the luxury and corruption of Nero's court, and soon to commit suicide".Haskell and Penny 1981:52. An early 17th-century version of the head now among the Arundel marbles at the Ashmolean Museum was probably owned by the court painter Peter Paul Rubens.M. Vickers, "Rubens' 'Seneca'?" The Burlington Magazoine119 (1977).
Of the Herculanean version of the Pseudo-Seneca, as it is still widely known, the outstanding quality was quickly recognized by Winckelmann, though he already began to doubt that the bust was that of Seneca as early as 1764.Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums, 1764 in Winckelmann's Werke, Bk. 10, chap 3, 201f, §4. An engraving of it was published in the magnificently-produced series of folios that appeared under the royal patronage of Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, Le Antichità di Ercolano (vol. V, 1767).
In 1813 a Roman image of Seneca was found on an inscribed marble herm portrait, which showed a man with quite different features.Now in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin. Since then, the bust has been conjectured to represent many other people, including Aesop, Archilochus, Aristophanes, Callimachus, Carneades, Epicharmus, Eratosthenes, Euripides, Hesiod, Hipponax, Lucretius, Philemon, and Philitas of Cos. Gisela Richter suggested that Hesiod seemed to be the most acceptable, a suggestion that other commentators have endorsed.Commentators agreeing with Richter: Prinz, Wolfram 1973. "The Four Philosophers by Rubens and the Pseudo-Seneca in Seventeenth-Century Painting" The Art Bulletin 55.3 (September 1973), pp. 410-428. "...one feels that it may just as well have been the Greek writer Hesiod..." Robertson, Martin Review of G, Richter, The Portraits of the Greeks The Burlington Magazine 108.756 (March 1966), pp 148-150. "...with Miss Richter, I accept the identification as Hesiod"
Erika Simon believed that it represented Hesiod and that the lost original was created in the circle of Krates of Mallos and the frieze-sculptors of the Pergamon Altar. The online presentation of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, NaplesMuseo Archeologico Nazionale: Portrait head of so-called Seneca describes the state of discussion in the following way:
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