ITALIAN, ROME, LATE 18TH CENTURY

This widely recognisable portrait of Alexander the Great as an inspired ruler typified by his youthful, beardless face and his tousled leonine hair swept upwards from the forehead, was first established by Lysippus. Alexander is thought to have maintained a strict level of control over his image and Plutarch records that 'it was by this artist alone that Alexander himself thought it fit that he should be modelled’. The present bust is based on a Roman copy of a Greek original in the Capitoline Museum in Rome, and is a particularly fine example, notable for the deeply rendered curls of hair and its beautifully polished surface.