The Emperor Lucius Verus
- 114
Gods and Heroes: Baroque Images of Antiquity, Wildenstein and Company Gallery, New York, October 30, 1968-January 4, 1969, no. 67.
Discovery and Deceit: Archaeology and the Forger's Craft, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, October 3-January 5, 1996-1997.
Barberini family collection, Rome, by 1640-May 10, 1935 [1];
By inheritance to Maria Barberini-Colonna di Sciarra, Princess of Palestrina (1872-1955), Palazzo Barberini, Rome, by May 10, 1935 [2];
Purchased from Maria Barberini-Colonna by the dealer Ettore Sestieri, Rome, on joint account with Giuseppe “Pico” Cellini, Rome, May 10, 1935-April 23, 1948 [3];
Purchased from Sestieri, through Gabriel Sonnino and Harold Woodbury Parsons, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1948.
NOTES:
[1] Entry in Barberini inventory III. Menghini. 32-40, Inventario delle statue et altre robbe che si retruovano oggi nel Antigaglia Del Emm.o Sig. Cardinale Francesco Barbberino amministrate da me Nicolo Menghini, Biblioteca Vaticana, as published in Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, Seventeenth-Century Barberini Documents and Inventories of Art (New York: New York University Press, 1975), 146, no. 419: “Eppiu vi e un petto compagnio di detto petto con barba riccia in abito de Imperatore tutto moderno, con pieduccio de Marmo n.o---- Li detti petti se li a l’EMM.mo Sig.r Cardinal Antonio in persona a prese la Madre Natura che fu comprata dal Conte Gabrielli Castello quali stavano nel antigaglia et Cio fu in tempo che il Duca di Parma desino nel Palazo del EMMmo Sig.re Cardinale Antonio.”
[2] In a sworn statement before the American Vice Consul in Rome, dated April 23, 1948, in NAMA Registration files, Ettore Sestieri declared: “I the undersigned Dr. Ettore Sestieri, Attorney for the Artistic Patimony [sic] of Her Excellency the Princess Maria Barberini, do hereby declare that the marble portrait bust…formed part of the Collection of the above named Princess. No mention of this bust…has ever been made, owing to the fact that it always stood in the reception apartment on the first floor of the Barberini’s Palace, and was never shown to the public.”
[3] Ettore Sestieri’s and Giuseppe Cellini’s joint acquisition of the bust is described by Parsons in a letter to Paul Gardner, Director, October 5, 1948. The date of purchase from the Barberini collection is indicated on Ettore Sestieri’s invoice to NAMA. Copies of both are in the NAMA curatorial files.
Gods and Heroes: Baroque Images of Antiquity, exh. cat. (New York: Wildenstein, 1968), 16, unpaginated, (repro.), as by Roman school.
Jane Ayer Scott, “Gods and Heroes: Baroque Images of Antiquity ,” Archaeology 21, no. 4 (October 1968): 307, (repro.).
Mahonri Sharp Young, “Letter from U.S.A,” Apollo 88, no. 81 (November 1968): 390, (repro.).
Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, Seventeenth-Century Barberini Documents and Inventories of Art (New York: New York University Press, 1975), 146, no. 419
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 163, (repro.), as by workshop of Pietro Bernini.
Deborah Emont Scott, ed.,The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7 th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 68, (repro.), as by Italian school.
