Comment on Busts of Socrates and Apollo 1805-06

For precision’s sake, it should be mentioned that the name Justinian’s on the 1806 list could also refer to a marble copy of a classical bust representing the Roman emperor Justinian (ca. 482-565). However, choosing a bust of this emperor as a sample worth copying would seem counterintuitive, given that the Apollo bust in the Giustiniani collection was also available—not least because any such imperial bust would have derived from late antiquity, which was regarded as a fallen age in terms of sculpture.

Last updated 10.03.2015