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Bronze Head of Demetrios Poliorketes
Unknown · Second half of the 1st century BC
A tiny bronze head, no bigger than a fist, with a face that was famous in its day. The hair is short and held by a band, and rising from it, above the forehead, are two small horns. They are the attribute of Demetrios Poliorketes, the Besieger, the flamboyant Macedonian who fought Alexander's other successors for forty years, invented giant siege engines, and was worshipped as a god in Athens. The bull horns on his coins claim the power of Poseidon and Dionysos. The eyeballs are plated with silver so that they gleam, and the irises, once inlaid, are missing. The head was cast separately and soldered to a statuette body, now lost, and a hole at the top and a flaw in the front curls show the casting was not perfect. The right side of the face is slightly crushed.
The head is thought to have been made in Asia Minor in the second half of the first century BC, two centuries after the king's death, when collectors under Roman rule kept small images of the great figures of the Hellenistic age. The museum's entry book records that it came from Istanbul. The Louvre bought it in February 1921.
Did You Know? Look for two small horns in his hair: Demetrios claimed the bull horns of Poseidon and Dionysos as a sign of divine power.
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