Summary

Head of Herakles, Roman. A fine sculpture of classical origin in white marble, face of a bearded male.

Full description

Head of Herakles, Roman. A fine sculpture of classical origin in white marble, face of a bearded male. The front of the head is preserved from the area of the right ear to left cheek, and from the beard beneath the chin to the top of the head. This face has broken off from a larger sculpture in the round. There are drill holes in the break surfaces that indicate the carving continued around and that the head was not a work in relief. The back surface however is worn smooth; it has the aspect of a pebble. This suggests that for centuries this side of the stone was exposed to the elements. The front surface of the face is also heavily worn. The hair over the brow and the eyebrows are almost completely missing. Pupils and lines on the face and brow have been drawn in recently with a pencil. There is also a dark modern patina over much of the surface. Traces of fine carving are still preserved. The eyes, asymmetrically set, have fine pointed inner tearducts and crisp eyelids; their deep setting has preserved them. .The hair at the top of the head is also well carved and well preserved. Traces of deep drill work are preserved in the beard below the mouth and around the mandible. The hair band is separated from the forehead by deep drill work on the right side of the head; in that drill channel the point of the drill is still visible. The nostrils (two drill holes), mouth (a thin channel), and ear holes (larger area) are also drilled out. There are also traces of the flat chisel in the hair. At the left temple are faint curving lines; these represent all that is legible of the cutting, probably of a flat chisel,that defined short curling locks of hair. On the right side of the brow, above the temple, similar lines are more visible. Fine lines of a flat chisel are also visible in the strands of hair; notice the two locks of moustache hair at the left corner of the mouth. . The large (over life-size) head depicts a short-haired bearded male of mature age and with a swollen ear. He wears a band in his hair and turns. Originally a work in the round, the front of the head has broken off and probably been used for a long period face down; its back has worn naturally to a flat surface. It was therefore easily re-used as high relief in the wall at Biddulph Grange. Iconographically and technically the head is typical of ancient Roman practice. It was made probably to represent Herakles and loosely followed a model of the fourth century BC. At Biddulph Grange it seems to have been intended to represent Adam. The head wears a band around its brow. This had some kind of ornament or more probably a twist in material over the right ear; viewed from above the band has an indentation over the right corner of the brow and viewed from the front and side there is a trace of drilling in the surface. The hair is short and curly at the top of the head and around the temples. It may have receded slightly over the centre of the brow. The moustache is long and the beard is full and bushy around the jawline. At the left corner of the mouth, the long moustache locks ends in a round curl that moves away from the mouth and encounters a smaller curl that turns in towards the mouth. The strands of both locks were carefully carved. This area gives a glimpse of the good quality of the original carving. Nothing remains of the eyebrows, but the eyes are deep set. The deep setting has protected and so preserved the inner corners of the eyes. The nicely-cut tearducts are rounded and curve downward. The carving of the eyes –the fine corners, sharp lids, and lack of pupils or irises—would be in keeping with a date of later first or second century manufacture. The nose is missing but the bridge is broad and the nostrils wide set; both indicate a thick nose. The mouth is a thin line with slightly drooping corners. The brow is lined, and creases run diagonally from the inner corners of the eyes into the cheeks. The extant right ear is tall and sunken in the middle. The large scale of the head and the fact that it was carved in the round suggest a subject of importance. The heavy features, low brow, beard, the twisted fillet (hair band) with decoration at the corners, and the swollen inner (cauliflower) ear are elements of the iconography of Herakles. He was a hard-working hero famous for his brawn rather than his intellect. He was truly of man of the people who fought and got drunk with the same ease as he completed heroic tasks. In the visual culture of the classical world, both his heroic and ordinary aspects were much commemorated. Two famous images of Herakles were ascribed to the Greek, 4th c. BC, sculptor Lysippos and are recognized in two much copied statue types, the Herakles at the Table and the Herakles Farnese. These fourth century masterpieces,-- the one showing him with a wreath in his hair and drunk, and the other showing him magnificently muscled but tired,-- in turn informed numerous variations in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. In the sculpture of the Roman period Herakles was not only popular as a statue but also on herms, which are both architectural and sculptural. A popular herm variety shows an almost full-figure Herakles dressed in a lion skin. Although it is difficult to ascertain because of the fragmentary nature of the head, the asymmetry of the Biddulph head (the deep drilling under the right side of the hair band and the setting of the eyes) suggests that it came from a turned herm or from a statue with an unusual position of the head. The Biddulph Grange head was set into the wall below the head of God (104580) and across from the veiled head (104582). It was probably intended to represent Adam, the first man, who, expelled from Eden, found a life of labours. The choice of Herakles is particularly good. One of six sculptural fragments (104579-104584) carefully set into the wall on the left of the entrance to the Geological Gallery of Biddulph Grange which opened in 1862. The foyer area, the left wall of which they decorated, preceded the gallery. In the gallery, the seven days of Creation were demonstrated one by one, on the wall to the visitor’s left, by means of geological evidence, rocks and fossils. In both the entrance and in the gallery, the objects were set into the wall with deliberate illustrative purpose. In both the entrance and the gallery, the objects are stone and somehow marked, and through their ancient markings demonstrate the truth of the creation story. In the entrance wall, five of the objects were carved in the Greco-Roman period; the other object was carved later but the creators of the gallery may not have known that. The objects set into the gallery wall illustrate a geological approach that was intended to confirm scientifically the Christian understanding of creation. The objects set into the entrance were a stone and sculptural re-enactment of the traditional approach to the Christian creation scene which the gallery would confirm scientifically. In the Biddulph Grange wall, a bearded paternal figure (104580) peers out and over a scene below; the actual object, a head of Goliath with Renaissance origins, stands for God the Father. Below him, to the left and right, are male and female heads (104581 & 104582). The male head is bearded with a lined and tried face, in fact the head probably of Herakles from the Roman period. Herakles, the mortal son of Zeus, who had to struggle through 12 labours to redeem himself and get entry to heaven, is a brilliant choice for Adam. One is left to wonder whether this choice was coincidence or whether the creators of the gallery were extremely well-versed. The pendant to this male head, Adam, is female head is modestly veiled with symmetrical ageless features; she is intended at Biddulph Grange to be Eve. In reality, she is the head of the ideal woman from a classical Greek tombstone. Again the choice of an image that was made as a representation of the most appropriate qualities of a demure and modest wife for an image of Eve is exceptionally well-conceived. Both of these choices would seem to confirm the longevity of the Christian story; that is, even in societies where the story was not espoused, the fundamental concepts behind it existed. Below these two human heads, on the left and right, are fragments from Roman sarcophagi which show animals and their natural plight in life. On the left (104583), a wild boar is hunted by men and on the right (104584), a noble horse is taken down by a ravenous lion. These are the marvellous creatures which God created and which are in a natural state of conflict with other beings. These images were displayed on Roman sarcophagi precisely because they represented the simplicity of nature, both its natural beauty and cruelty. At the bottom of the scene, in antithesis to God the Father, is a dark piece of porphyry, carved to represent the mouth and beard of a man (104579). Its interpretation is less clear. It may stand for the solid basis that God created for his creatures. It is a magnificent stone which in its fragmentary state is virtually devoid of animation. The space of the wall furthermore may have been punctuated by a lamp at the centre of these sculptural fragments. A decorative stone bracket projects from the centre and must have carried some object. A lamp or torch placed on the bracket would have given illuminated the dark passage and represented the light of God. All of the sculptures are carefully chosen fragments; they each have a specific aesthetic and compositional value. They would seem to have been purchased for this purpose and may even have been broken (with the exception of 104579 into their current shape for this purpose. The composer has selected with attention and each of the fragments (with perhaps the exception of 104580 is attractive and well-carved. Symbolically the reuse of objects from “ancient” cultures suggests the antiquity and venerable veracity of the Creation scene. (Exert from J. Lenaghan 2017 "Biddulph Grange. Report in Wall left of entrance to gallery")