Head of Menelaos

Maker Fonderia Chiurazzi (Italian, founded 1870)

Date20th Century

MediumBronze

DimensionsOverall: 25 9/16 × 16 9/16 × 14 3/16 in. (65 × 42 × 36 cm) approx.
Overall (base): 10 1/4 × 13 × 13 in. (26 × 33 × 33 cm) approx.

ClassificationsSculpture

Credit LineBequest of John Ringling, 1936

Object numberSN5043

This bronze reproduces an ancient marble head preserved in the Vatican Museums. That work is a fragment of an over life-sized sculpture known as the “Pasquino Group”, in which an older warrior carries the lifeless body of a younger comrade in his arms (thought by some scholars to be Menelaos and Patroklos). The group was much admired in the 18th and 19th centuries; indeed, the marble head copied here was among the antiquities Napoleon removed to the Louvre after his conquest of the Papal States.

On View

On view

Location