‘This Roman head is almost certainly an Imperial-period copy of a portrait of Cicero, and that if this is confirmed (as I am confident it will be), you will be in possession of only the fifth known and acknowledged head of Cicero. Cicero portraits are incredibly rare and if your portrait is confirmed as Cicero it will be the first ‘new’ Cicero portrait identified in more than a century…Your Roman bust most nearly resembles the ‘Capitoline Cicero’ in Rome- but now, in your version, idealized, smoothed out and ‘juvenated’ (so that Cicero now appears twenty years younger than in acknowledged portraits). But your bust also bears a striking resemblance to the Vatican, Apsley House and Uffizi heads, i.e. all the other acknowledged Cicero portraits.’ - (X.0395)
Antiquities Ancient Roman
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