Julius Caesar
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
Unknown
Materials
Oolitic linestone
Measurements
780 x 840 mm
Order this imageCollection
Horton Court, Gloucestershire
NT 740374.1
Summary
One of four heads, in bas-relief with the inscription of Julius Caesar (DIVI IVLI: Divine Julius). This has a coin-like representation and is Classical in style. Small holes on Caesar's wreath suggest it once held foliage or metal adornments.
Full description
From Jeremy Warren, Sculpture Research Curator (2019). The Julius Caesar is of great interest as it is copied from an Italian Renaissance plaquette after the Antique, both the head and the inscription. Examples in the Ashmolean Museum, nos. 357-58 in Medieval And Renaissance Sculpture In The Ashmolean Museum, Plaquettes, Vol 3, 2017, Jeremy Warren . We normally think of the Julius Caesar casts being made around 1500; a intaglio gem was recorded in 1483 and the plaquette was popular for bookbindings in the early 16th century. The image was used in reverse for Julius Caesar in Andrea Fulvio's influential Illustrium Imagines (1517). This relief doesn't have the lituus, the crooked staff referring to Caesar's membership of the College of Augurs, or the star, said to have been seen after his death at the games held in his honour.
Provenance
Indigenous 16th century feature of Horton Court, bequeathed to the National Trust by Hilda Wills in 1947.
Marks and inscriptions
DIVINITY