CIRCA 2ND CENTURY A.D.

Richter surmises that portraits of Aristotle – the great Greek polymath and tutor of Alexander the Great – all depict him as a 60 year-old man with “a short beard, a wide mouth, with a full lower lip, and a high, very broad, furrowed, mostly bald forehead” (see p. 174 in The Portraits of the Greeks). Aristotle’s most prominent feature is his distinguished forehead, which Richter (op. cit.) notes contributes to his “expression…of high intelligence, with exceptional powers of concentrated observation.”

The present portrait depicts Aristotle with a bald pate and long wavy locks at the side. He has a creased forehead above heavy-lidded, almond-shaped eyes, prominent nasolabial folds, and a curly mustache and beard. Comparison to a portrait in the Bibliothèque Mazarine (figs. 999-1000 in Richter, op. cit.) that also shares the same full closed lips and prominent wrinkles and folds confirm that Aristotle is the intended subject.

Roman portraits of Aristotle are based on a now-lost 4th century B.C. prototype traditionally ascribed to Lysippos. An inscription on a headless Roman herm in Athens (“Alexander set up this portrait of the divine Aristotle, son of Nikomachos, fountain of wisdom”) indicate that the posthumous portrait was commissioned by Alexander the Great (see Richter, op. cit., pp. 171, 175). That Romans several centuries later revered the Greek philosopher is established not only by the numerous extant portraits but also by the poet Juvenal who remarks, “No garden is perfect unless it contains a portrait of Aristotle or one of Pittakos” (Satires 2, 5-6).