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The Lansdowne Trajan

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San Antonio Museum of Art, Purchased with funds provided by Gilbert M. Denman, Jr.
Contact San Antonio Museum of Art, Registrar Department for rights and reproduction of this image.

• Images(11)

The Lansdowne Trajan

DepartmentAncient Mediterranean Art

CultureRoman

Datehead, ca. A.D. 98-117; torso, 1st-2nd century A.D.

MediumMarble

Dimensionsheight including plinth: 81 3/8 in. (206.7 cm)
width: 31 3/4 in. (80.7 cm)
depth: 23 7/8 in. (60.6 cm)

Credit LinePurchased with funds provided by Gilbert M. Denman, Jr.

Object number99.8.1

DescriptionThis statue consists of a portrait head of the emperor Trajan and a youthful nude torso that were joined in the 18th century. The head portrays Trajan with his typical hairstyle of comma-shaped locks across the forehead, and turns slightly to his left. The torso, a type used for statues of Hermes and for nude portraits, stands in a hipshot pose with the weight on the left leg. A cloak is draped over the left shoulder and around the left arm. Restorations include the lower part of the face, the right arm below the shoulder, the left forearm and the lower part of the cloak, the right leg below the knee, the left foot and the tree trunk support.Label TextThis statue combines a portrait head of the emperor Trajan with a youthful nude torso. Trajan, who ruled from A.D. 98-117, was one of the most successful Roman emperors. Born in Italica, in modern Spain, he was the first emperor born outside Italy. Trajan was a capable military commander, and his conquests in eastern Europe and the Near East expanded the boundaries of the Roman Empire to their widest extent. In his portraits Trajan wears a short hairstyle that recalls that of Augustus, the first emperor. The slender, finely carved torso may originally have belonged to a statue of a youthful god or mythological hero. The head and torso were probably combined in the 1700s, when the statue entered the collection of the Marquess of Lansdowne. (Jessica Powers, 2008)ProvenanceProbably sold by Robert Adam (1728-1792) and James Adam (1732-1794) to William Petty-Fitzmaurice, second earl of Shelburne, first marquess of Lansdowne, (1737-1805), London, by 1765; acquired from the estate of William Petty-Fitzmaurice by John Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, second marquess of Lansdowne (1765-1809), London; by inheritance to Mary Arabella Petty, marchioness of Lansdowne (d. 1833), London, 1809; sold by Mary Arabella Petty to Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, third marquess of Lansdowne (1780-1863), London, 1810; by inheritance to Henry Thomas Petty Fitzmaurice, fourth marquess of Lansdowne (1816-1866), London, 1863; by inheritance to Henry Charles Petty-Fitzmaurice, fifth marquess of Lansdowne (1845-1927), London, 1866; by inheritance to Henry William Edmund Petty-Fitzmaurice, sixth marquess of Lansdowne (1872-1936), Wiltshire, 1927; sold, Christie's, London, March 5, 1930, lot 109, to Amor. Sold to Karl and Dagmar Bergsten, Stockholm, 1930; sold, Christie's, New York, June 4, 1999, lot 126 to San Antonio Museum of Art.Published ReferencesClarac, Musée de Sculpture (1841), v. 2415a, pl. 942.

A. Michaelis, "Die Privatsammlungen antiker Bildwerke in England," Archäologische Zeitung 32 (1874) 36, no. 25.

A. Michaelis, Ancient Marbles in Great Britain (Cambridge, 1882), 444, no. 30.

A. H. Smith, A Catalogue of the Ancient Marbles at Lansdowne House (London: Woodfall & Kinder, 1889), 20, no. 30.

Christie's, The Celebrated Collection of Ancient Marbles in the Property of the Most Hon. the Marquess of Lansdowne, London, 5 March 1930, lot 109.

K. Asplund, Collection Bergsten II. Collection de peintures et de sculptures appartenant à Karl Bergsten (Stockholm, 1943), no. 31.

C. C. Vermeule & D. von Bothmer, "Notes on a New Edition of Michaelis: Ancient Marbles in Great Britain, Part Two," American Journal of Archaeology 60 (1956) 334.

"A 20th Century Collector in the Grand Tour Manner," Christie's Magazine (March 1999), 26, 28.

Christie's, South Kensington, 21 April 1999, p. 91.

Christie's, New York, 4 June 1999, lot 126.

E. Angelicoussis, Reconstructing the Lansdowne Collection of Classical Marbles (Munich: Hirmer, 2017), 2:212-217, no. 32

S. Kansteiner, “Der Hermes Typus Richelieu,” Archäologischer Anzeiger (2017), 93, no. 7

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The San Antonio Museum of Art is in the process of digitizing its permanent collection. This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect SAMA's complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.