Pseudo-Seneca

It was originally believed to depict Seneca the Younger, the notable Roman philosopher, because its emaciated features were supposed to reflect his Stoic philosophy.

[2] The type of this bust was first given its identification as a "genuine" contemporary portrait of Seneca by Theodor Galle, called Gallaeus, in an Antwerp republication of Fulvio Orsini's Imagines et Elogia Virorum Illustrium et Eruditor ex Antiquis Lapidibus et Nomismatib[us]...[3] at a time when the exemplary image of the great man was more inspiring than the quality and character of the work of art that embodied it.

[4] Following the example of Cicero, who had decorated his study with busts, or of the imagines illustrium that peopled the villa at Sorrento of Pollius Felix, described by Statius,[5] gentlemen and scholars of the 16th and 17th centuries[6] were avid to have examples of the great writers of Classical Antiquity constantly before their eyes: "the learned all over Europe looked with awe and devotion at the Stoic philosopher, emaciated, even uncouth, disdainful of the luxury and corruption of Nero's court, and soon to commit suicide".

[9] An engraving of it was published in the magnificently-produced series of folios that appeared under the royal patronage of Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, Le Antichità di Ercolano (vol.

From the qualitative point of view, the head displays excellent workmanship; rather than a copy, it might well even be the original from which all the others are reproduced, and should be regarded as a portrait of reconstruction in which the accentuated wrinkles and folds of the face and forehead of the man, the intentionally unruly locks and the wrinkly neck contrast openly with the unwavering, penetrating gaze.