Commentary Prepared by Dr. Julia Lenaghan, Ashmolean Museum

C 153
Dresden Alexander. Dresden

Over life-size Roman period head made for insertion into a statue. Probably depicting Alexander the Great and following a type (‘Dresden’) made in the fourth century BC and frequently associated with the sculptor Lysippus.

Marble
Head
39 cm

Acquired from the collection of Heinrich Dressel. Dressel purchased his collection in Rome between 1871 and 1885. It is likely that this Alexander head which was bought in Rome was found in Rome itself or its environs. The head is, in any case, certainly from Italy.
Germany, Dresden, Albertinum und Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Skulpturensammlung, 174
Roman version of an original model dating ca. 340-320 BC

Preservation:
The head has been worked separately from its body. It is preserved complete with its neck. The nose is broken and there are chips and cracks along the jaw line on both sides of the face, scattered throughout the right cheek, and on the right eyebrow.

Description:
The head, which turns to its right, was made for insertion into a statue. It shows a fresh-faced youth with thick long hair around his face. The hair is combed forward from the back. On the back and upper part of the head it lies in tiers of thick, slightly undulating locks that are brushed forward. Around the face and in front of the ears the hair is again heavy and undulating, but it falls downwards. Between the locks that are brushed forwards from the back and those that fall straight downwards around the face, the ears are left uncovered, though surrounded in front and in back by locks. The locks over the inner corner of the right eye spring vivaciously upwards and part. These locks push all of the locks around them and then fall down to their respective sides. In general the locks are unusually thick and the strands within the locks are also thick and are indicated by sharp edges. The face is oval in shape. The brow is tall and a horizontal crease divides a flat upper section from a bulging lower section. The eyebrows are fine arching edges below which are heavy rolls of marble that indicate the hanging orbitals. The upper eyelids are well-defined arches and the lower lids are particularly horizontal. Below the lower lid the skin is modelled and reflects the depression of the eye socket. The high cheekbones protrude significantly and the cheeks are taut. The mouth is small from side to side with shapely lips. The upper lip has a curved central dip. The corners of the mouth are rendered by two drill holes. The chin is strong and large and juts forward.

Discussion:
The youthful, long-haired, turned, Roman period head in Dresden probably represents Alexander the Great, and it probably follows a model made in the fourth century BC, either during Alexander’s life time or just after his death. The head in Dresden is in fact the namesake of one (the ‘Dresden’ type) of the three extant portrait types that derive from fourth century portraits of Alexander. The other two types are the ‘Azara’ type discussed in cat.no. C 151 and the ‘Acropolis-Erbach-Berlin’ type discussed in cat.no. C 154-155. The Dresden head is known in one other Roman replica. This is a head in the Schloss Fassanerie in Fulda which is of lesser sculptural quality. The ‘Dresden’ type is identified as Alexander on the basis of three facts. First, the head was copied in the Roman period and therefore, probably represented a popular figure. Second, the head type seems stylistically to belong to the late fourth century. Third, its overall appearance—the broad structure of the face, the heavy facial features, the relationship of the hair to the face, and the length of the hair—correspond generally to the Azara portrait which is labelled Alexander the Great and to the secure depiction of Alexander on the Alexander mosaic found in Pompeii. In comparison to the other two sculpted fourth century portrait types of Alexander, the ‘Dresden’ type seems both the most dynamic and the most individual. The ‘Acropolis-Erbach-Berlin’ type appears to show a younger figure with more generic features and less exciting hair. The ‘Azara’ type shows an older calmer figure; in this case the poor state of preservation of the extant ‘Azara’ copies may influence our assessment of the original. The ‘Dresden’ type, however, has a nervous energy that is created by the turn of the head, the significant spurt of the hair near but not at the center of the forehead, the pronounced bulge of the brow, the high prominent cheekbones, taut cheeks, and the strong chin. Many scholars believe that the type was created early in the career of Alexander, primarily because the head seems to show a man who is older than the youth portrayed in the ‘Acropolis-Erbach-Berlin’ type and one who is younger than the man portrayed in the ‘Azara’ type. The dominating scholarly opinion also associates the head with a work of Lysippus. The reasons for the association are that 1) Lysippus was known to have been Alexander’s preferred portraitist, 2) Lysippus showed Alexander with an up-turned head, and 3) the ‘Dresden’ type is thought to be revolutionary and non-Attic in style. None of these reasons are, however, compelling since artists other than Lysippus made portraits of Alexander in which his head may have been turned and we have only the Apoxyomenos (cat.no. C 133) from which to make conclusions about Lysippan ‘innovative’ style. Although the head type may indeed have derived from an image of Alexander created by Lysippus, there is just no strong evidence for the connection. We simply lack any true link between the extant images of Alexander and the literary descriptions of the monuments and sculptors of Alexander. J. Lenaghan

Bibliography:
A. Michaelis, "Erwebungen der Antikensammlungen in Deutschland" (AA 1889) 96 and 98 short catalogue entry and details about collection and original acquisition
P. Herrmann, Verzeichnis der Antiken Originalbildwerke der Staatlichen Skulpturensammlung zu Dresden (Berlin 1925) 49, no. 174 descriptive entry with little value
G.M.A. Richter, Portraits of the Greeks III (London 1965) 255, no. 5b, fig. 1725 brief entry without good discussion
R. R. R. Smith, Hellenistic Royal Portraits (Oxford 1988) 60-61, 156, no. 3A good succinct presentation of head and type
A. Stewart, Faces of Power: Alexander’s Image and Hellenistic Politics (Berkeley 1993) 106-107, 112-113, 425 fig. 9 believes head represents Lysippan work
C. Rolley, La sculpture grecque II. La période classique (Paris 1999) 350, fig. 362 young type of Alexander, possibly Lysippan