Marcus Aurelius; The porphyry bust with gilded bronze mantle and modern colossal bronze head, reproducing the portrait of Marcus Aurelius, one of the most elaborate pieces in the Ludovisi collection. It had great notoriety in ancient literature until the early 19th century as a sculpture of antiquarian taste. Almost certainly the collector who owned it had the ancient tunicated porphyry bust completed, dating back to the first half of the 4th century. B.C. and originally surmounted by an official portrait, adding the golden cloak and the modern head inspired by the most admired and esteemed Roman emperor over the centuries: Marcus Aurelius. The reference model for the sculptor seems to have been the portrait of the famous equestrian statue of the Capitoline Hill, following the typically seventeenth-century manner tending to contrast bronze with precious materials, such as porphyry, or those reputedly such as ancient red. Marco Aurelio Ludovisi enjoyed widespread popularity and was widely cited in the first printed volumes produced between the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth century reporting the description of Villa Ludovisi and the sculptures preserved there. Among them: De Sebastiani of 1683 (Vlaggzo curiosi de' Palazzi e Ville piil notable di Roma), Montfaucon (Diarium Italicum, Paris 1702) and 11 Winckelmann (History of art among the ancients, book VII, chapter 11). In 1800 the portrait became part of what was called the Gallery of the Villa Ludovisi and remembered by Nibby in his Description of Rome in the year MDCCCXXXVIII. With the purchase of the Ludovisi collection by the Italian State, the piece passed to the collection of National Roman Museum at the Baths of Diocletian and later moved to Palazzo Chigi. On the occasion of the opening of the Museum to the public, the Marcus Aurelius exhibited together with the other sculptures from the Ludovisi collection.; DSC04689.JPG; DSC-T30; f/3.5; 10/130; 320; ©ROY_GRUBB [4056]
