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Published:
1. Royal-Athena Gallery, Art of the Ancient World. Vol. XXII, no. 89, January 2011, p. 8, cat. no. 12.
2. Pollini, 'Roman Marble Sculpture', in M. Merrony (ed.), Mougins Museum of Classical Art, Mougins, 2011, p. 86, fig. 25.
3. Merrony (ed.), Musée d’Art Classique de Mougins: La collection Famille Levett, Mougins, 2012, p. 56 and 85.
4. Egypte Ancienne, no. 8, May-July 2013.
5. Wrathall, "Collectors & Collections," Christie's Magazine, January-February 2016, p. 52.
6. Squire, 'A Passionate Collector', in Minerva: The International Review of Ancient Art & Archaeology, vol. 29, no. 2, London, March - April 2018, p. 16.
7. Leung, "From 4th-Century Greek Vases to Female Abstract Expressionism", Larry's List, 01/01/2022.
Exhibited: Musée d’Art Classique de Mougins (Mougins Museum of Classical Art), June 2011–August 2023, inventory number MMoCA.568.
Expert’s Note
Aeschylus (c. 525-456 BC), the father of Greek tragedy, led a life almost as dramatic as the works he created. In 490 BC, he fought at Marathon, where the Athenians defeated the invading Persian army and where his brother Cynaegirus was killed in battle. Ten years later, Aeschylus experienced the Persian Wars again at Salamis. Remarkably, his epitaph commemorated his courage at Marathon rather than his fame as a poet.
Aeschylus would fundamentally transform Western theatre. Traditionally credited with introducing the second actor, he made genuine dramatic dialogue and conflict possible. Of the many plays attributed to him, only seven survive complete, among them The Persians, Prometheus Bound, and the Oresteia trilogy—Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides.
Nearly 2,500 years after his death, his tragedies remain alive on the world stage. The Persians and the Oresteia continue to be performed internationally, from the ancient theatres of Epidaurus and Syracuse to major modern stages in New York, London, Paris, and beyond. The simple soldier who survived the Persian Wars thus became the dramatist whose works helped define Western theatre—and are still played to this day.
Finely carved, the poet depicted as a bearded man with a grave, contemplative expression. The face is strongly modeled with high cheekbones, deeply set eyes beneath heavy lids, a broad nose, and a slightly parted mouth framed by a thick moustache. The long beard falls in deeply carved, wavy locks, while the hair is somewhat receding above the forehead, the remaining strands arranged in deliberately tousled curls combed forward, with shorter locks projecting at the temples. The treatment emphasizes both age and intellectual gravity, characteristic of the so-called Farnese type traditionally identified with Aeschylus, regarded as the father of Greek tragedy.
Provenance: An old private collection in Portugal. Collection W. L., Sint Niklaas, Belgium, acquired c. 2005. Royal-Athena Galleries, New York, acquired from the above. The private collection of Christian Levett, France, and from thereon permanently exhibited in the Musée d’Art Classique de Mougins, the Museum of Classical Art in Mougins, France.
Royal-Athena Galleries was a prominent New York antiquities dealership directed by Dr. Jerome M. Eisenberg (1930-2022), a leading antiquities dealer, scholar, and specialist in ancient art, particularly Etruscan bronzes and Roman sculpture. His interest in antiquities began in childhood, and at the age of twelve he established a mail-order ancient coin business with his father. After studying geology at Boston University and pursuing graduate coursework in art history, he founded Royal-Athena Galleries in Manhattan in 1954, later expanding with branches in Beverly Hills and London. Over the course of his long career, Eisenberg handled an estimated 40,000 antiquities and became a prominent figure in the international market for Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Etruscan, and Near Eastern art. He also served as an expert appraiser and witness in numerous legal cases concerning the value and provenance of ancient works. In 1990, Eisenberg founded the archaeological journal Minerva, which he edited until 2009, and in 1993 he became a founding member of the International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art. In 2012, he was awarded the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity for his contribution to the promotion of Italian culture. He retired and closed Royal-Athena Galleries in 2020, concluding a career that had spanned more than six decades.
Christian Levett (b. 1970) is a British commodities trader-turned-collector whose passion for collecting began in childhood. After building early collections of medals, art, and natural history books, he turned to antiquities in the early 2000s, quickly establishing himself as one of the most active private collectors in the field. In 2011, he founded the Musée d’Art Classique de Mougins (Mougins Museum of Classical Art) in southern France, where antiquities are exhibited in dialogue with works by modern and contemporary artists influenced by the classical tradition. Since retiring from commodities in 2016, Levett has devoted himself full-time to art and philanthropy, sponsoring academic scholarships and supporting archaeological excavations, including at Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli.
Condition: Good condition, commensurate with age. Expected wear, obvious losses, and ancient chips, particularly to the right side of the head and the tip of the beard. Typical traces of weathering and fine natural fissures. Minor old repairs to the nose and eyebrows, discreet and barely noticeable. The white marble has developed a magnificent, naturally grown ivory-colored patina with a soft, lustrous surface.
French Export License: Certificat d’exportation pour un bien culturel, no. 243476 DUPLICATА dated 23 October 2023, has been granted. A copy accompanies this lot.
Weight: 29.6 kg (incl. stand)
Dimensions: Height 33 cm (excl. stand), 48 cm (incl. stand)
With an associated 19th-century red-toned marble stand. An old engraved brass plaque on the base incorrectly identifies him as ‘Homerus.’ (2)
The first inscribed portrait of Aeschylus (Athens, 525-456 BC), author of the Oresteia trilogy among many other works, was created more than a century after his death, during the 110th Olympiad (340-336 BC). At that time, the Athenian statesman Lycurgus decreed that statues of the three great tragic poets, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, be erected in the Theater of Dionysus in Athens. The commission formed part of a broader effort to preserve and canonize the dramatic heritage of classical Athens, by then already regarded as a cornerstone of Greek culture. Aeschylus is thought to have written some seventy to ninety plays, of which only seven survive complete, while fragments of others are preserved in ancient quotations and Egyptian papyri.
No securely inscribed portrait of Aeschylus survives, and several portrait types have therefore been proposed by scholars as representations of the poet. As Gisela Richter observed, the Greek prototype underlying the surviving Roman copies was probably the portrait erected under Lycurgus in the late 4th century BC. Its identification rests in part on the repeated association of this otherwise unnamed poet type with portraits of Sophocles and Euripides. Similarities with the so-called “Lateran type” portrait of Sophocles further support a date of circa 340-330 BC for the original conception.
The image was subsequently copied and adapted during the Roman period, when portraits of celebrated Greek poets, philosophers, and statesmen were highly prized as expressions of education and cultural refinement. Such works were displayed in villas, libraries, gardens, and other cultivated settings, where they evoked the intellectual prestige of the Greek past. The present portrait belongs to this tradition: although ultimately dependent on a 4th-century BC Greek prototype, it reflects the Roman practice of preserving and reinterpreting canonical images of the great figures of antiquity. Its mature features, severe expression, and carefully rendered hair and beard were intended less as a literal likeness than as a visual embodiment of the dignity, wisdom, and gravitas befitting one of the foundational masters of Greek tragedy.
Literature comparison:
Compare a closely related Roman-copy of a 4th century Greek original portrait of Athenian tragedian Aeschylus, in the Neues Museum, Berlin, inventory number SK 313. Compare a related marble portrait of a Greek Philosopher, dated ca. 100-125 AD, 53.7 cm high, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, inventory number 5000. Compare a closely related marble portrait of Homer, realized as an idealized Roman portrait bust, dated to the 2nd century AD, 57.15 cm high, in the British Museum, registration number 1805,0703.85.
Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Christie’s New York, 7 December 2011, lot 180
Price: USD 146,500 or approx. EUR 190,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A Roman marble portrait head of Aischylos, circa 1st century AD
Expert remark: Compare the closely related modeling and similar subject, material, idealized features, hair, and physiognomy. Note the similar size (33.7 cm). Also note the significant damages to this example.
Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Sotheby’s London, 2 July 2019, lot 247
Price: GBP 100,000 or approx. EUR 155,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A Roman marble portrait head of Aristotle, circa 1st century AD
Expert remark: Compare the closely related modeling and similar material, idealized features, hair, and physiognomy. Note the size (34.5 cm). Also note the significant damages to this example.
Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Christie’s London, 7 December 2022, lot 43
Price: GBP 126,000 or approx. EUR 175,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A Roman marble portrait head of Hermarchos, circa 1st century BC-AD
Expert remark: Compare the closely related modeling and similar material, idealized features, hair, and physiognomy. Note the larger size (39.3 cm).
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