Advanced Search
Advanced Search
View: 3/4 right profile

Bust of Aristotle


Idealized head of Aristotle
Italian (possibly Padua or Venice)
Renaissance
early 16th century
Object Place: Europe, Italy, North

Medium/Technique Metal; bronze
Dimensions 67.94 cm (26 3/4 in.)
Credit Line 1941 Purchase Fund (Juliana Cheney Edwards Collection)
Accession Number47.1380
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsEurope
ClassificationsSculpture

DescriptionIdealized head of Aristotle. Bronze. Long pointed beard, faint indication of iris. Plain cap with banded edge. Folds of hood at back, name in Greek on right side of collar. On molded black marble base, (modern).
ProvenanceFriedrich Ludwig von Gans (b. 1833 - d. 1920), Frankfurt; sold by Gans to the Bachstitz Gallery, the Hague and, in 1923, exhibited at P. Jackson Higgs Gallery (American representative of Bachstitz), New York; December 5-6, 1924, consigned anonymously, Anderson Galleries, New York, lot 37, sold for $4000 [see note 1]; possibly bought in or bought back by P. Jackson Higgs Gallery [see note 2]; 1929, sold by P. Jackson Higgs Gallery to John Gellatly (b. 1853 - d. 1931), New York; to his widow, Charlayne Whiteley Plummer Gellatly (b. 1896 - d. 1970) , New York; November 4-5, 1932, Mrs. John Gellatly and others sale, Anderson Galleries, New York, lot 189 [see note 3]. By 1941, Duveen Brothers, New York; 1947, sold by Duveen to the MFA for $8000. (Accession Date: October 9, 1947)

NOTES:
[1] The bust was said to have sold "on order" for $4000. "Art from England nets $95,202 Here," New York Times, December 6, 1924. [2] The bust was owned by P. Jackson Higgs Gallery in 1927; see Frank E. Washburn Freund, "Leonardo's Portraits and Aristotle," International Studio 87, no. 362 (July 1927): p. 36. [3] Sold as a bust of Leonardo da Vinci as Aristotle.