Experts have found a rare bronze bust depicting one of the most colorful characters in Roman history: the mad, sexually depraved emperor Caligula.
Considered lost for almost 200 years, the 6-inch bust was originally excavated at Herculaneum, a Roman city destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
The bust can be viewed by the public from the end of this month. It is possible that the bust was cast in Herculaneum shortly before or after Caligula’s death, some 2,000 years ago.
It shows Caligula’s high forehead, small mouth with thin lips, prominent chin and the unmistakable glint of silver eyes that signified his ‘madness’.
Caligula, the third leader of the Roman Empire, lived a depraved lifestyle, indulging in brutal affairs with the wives of his allies and incestuous relationships with his sisters before his assassination in 41 AD.
The drawing shows Caligula’s high forehead, small mouth with thin lips, prominent chin and the unmistakable glint of silver eyes, experts said
Regardless of the age of the bust, experts call it an ‘exquisite’ item depicting one of the most depraved characters in human history
After a determined ten-year search, the bust was found by Dr Silvia Davoli, curator of Strawberry Hill and historian at the University of Oxford.
“The discovery of the Caligula head is a truly exciting event,” she said.
‘Each object recovered opens the doors to new hypotheses, allowing us to better understand the secret lives of objects and their movements over the centuries.’
It is still unknown exactly when the bust was cast, but it was one of the first objects excavated at Herculaneum in the 17th century.
Sometime in the 18th century, the bust was given to the famous English writer and politician Horace Walpole (1717-1797) by Sir Horace Mann, a distant relative who was the British envoy to Italy.
Both he and Walpole marveled at the expressiveness of the face which they believed represented the Emperor ‘at the beginning of his madness’.
Like many of his treasures, Walpole kept it in Strawberry Hill House, his 1749 Gothic Revival villa in Twickenham.
Caligula, the third leader of the Roman Empire, lived a depraved lifestyle, indulging in brutal affairs with wives of his allies and incestuous relations with his sisters before his assassination in 41 AD.
Both Mann and Walpole marveled at the expressiveness they believed the Emperor represented ‘at the beginning of his madness’.
Strawberry Hill House, a Gothic Revival villa, was built in Twickenham from 1749 by Horace Walpole
But in 1842, Caligula’s bronze head was sold at the ‘Great Sale’, when most of his collection disappeared into private hands – and has been missing ever since.
As part of her search, Dr. Davoli found a sketch of the bust that Horace Walpole had commissioned at Yale University, but she still did not know where the bust itself was.
Crucially, further research revealed that it had remained in the Walpole family after his death before being purchased by collectors, including eventually the famous Baron John Henry Schroder in the 1890s.
Schroder was the son of the man who founded Schroders investment banking in London in 1804 – and crucially the company still amassed a collection of antiques between the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
After the bust was discovered in the collection, it was “unmistakable” that every detail in the Carter drawing matched the object, Dr. Silvia Davoli said, proving that it depicted Caligula.
Now, after an absence of 182 years, it is being loaned back to its original home, Strawberry Hill House, for an exhibition running from June 29 to September 8.
Although there is no evidence that Sir Horace had any sexual relations with men, he had several ‘close friendships with other Batchelors’ and was described as ‘effeminate’ by his contemporaries. Above is a 1910 print by Sir Horace
Curator of the Schorder Collection, Dr. Caterina Badan, is now working with Silvia to reconstruct the complex history of the object.
Although it has been excavated at Herculaneum, experts cannot be entirely sure whether it was cast in Roman times or much more recently.
The smoothness of the bronze surface may indicate that it is a Renaissance statue that somehow became entangled during the excavation of Herculaneum in the 17th century.
Regardless of age, they call it an “exquisite” item depicting one of the most depraved characters in human history.