Marble head of Alexander the Great

Marble head of Alexander the Great, found in the Kerameikos, Athens
c. 300 BC. Height 0,28 m.

Marble head of Alexander the Great, found in the Kerameikos, Athens c. 300 BC.

Head of Alexander the Great, made of pentelic marble. It was found in the Kerameikos, Athens. Alexander wears the lion’s pelt, a common iconographic feature in depictions of the young king on coins, which hints at his descent from the mythical hero Herakles. The letters on Alexander’s face were carved at a later period.

Source : National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Bust of Alexander The Great

Bust of Alexander the great – Pierre II LeGros known as le jeune(1666-1719)

This marble bust depicts Alexander the Great wearing a helmet reminiscent of his status of chief of the Macedonian armies. Wrapped in a lion’s skin, an attribute of Heracles (Hercules), he also measures up to the twelve labors of this half mortal and half-deity hero, in light of his multiple military triumphs.

Pierre II Legros (1666-1719)

Pierre II Legros Born in Paris in 1666, Pierre II Legros also known as “Le Jeune”, started his apprenticeship with his father Pierre Legros (1629-1714), sculptor to the king.

In 1689, he won the Grand Prix de Rome. In 1690, he became a boarder at the Académie de France in Rome and spent four years copying antiquities and great masters of the past.After his term at the Académie ended, he remained in Rome to pursue his career.With other local sculptors already immersed in Roman artistic circles, such as Pierre-Etienne Monnot (1657-1733), he worked for wealthy patrons, whether private or religious, and for several religious communitities. He died in Rome in 1719.

Alexander according to Plutarch

Statue and bust of Alexander the Great in the Istanbul archaeological museum. The extraordinary bust was found by archaeologists working at Pergamum.

He was by his nature a lover of literature, of learning and of reading. Thinking, and calling the Iliad “A portable treasury of military excellence”, he took up the copy corrected by Aristotle, which people call the casket copy, and always kept it with a dagger under his pillow.

~Plutarch~

Bust of Alexander The Great

Bust of Alexander the Great, from Delos, now in the Louvre, Paris