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ΕλληνικάCHRONOLOGICAL WING · SCULPTURE · HISTORICALLY ATTESTED FIGURE
Pericles
Pericles in Athenian politics
Pericles was a central figure in Athens during a period of major public works and conflicts.
Museum documentation · free public access, no account required.
Reconstruction · Declared visual hypothesis
AI-recreated portrait of Pericles. The clothing draws on the historical context of the label; the face, the age represented, the colouring and the details not preserved are interpretive. It is not an authentic photograph nor a scientific facial reconstruction.
Tracekeepers
History and context
Pericles dominated Athenian politics in decades of empire, monumental construction and war. The bust in the British Museum preserves his name in Greek and copies an earlier original; the helmet identifies the general and participates in an ideal public image, not in a transparent psychological portrait.
The selected visual window is concrete: Roman busts reproducing a portrait type identified by inscription. The label does not use a generic work as if it were a certified portrait.
Reading limit: Indicate that the preserved pieces are Roman copies and that the helmet forms part of the iconographic type.
Evidence and interpretation
Authorised material window: sculpture. Roman busts reproducing a portrait type identified by inscription. Interpretation limit: Indicate that the preserved pieces are Roman copies and that the helmet forms part of the iconographic type.
AI-recreated portrait of Pericles. The clothing draws on the historical context of the label; the face, the age represented, the colouring and the details not preserved are interpretive. It is not an authentic photograph nor a scientific facial reconstruction.
Catalogue facts
- Canonical ID
- pericles
- Status
- Historically attested figure
- View window
- sculpture
- Chronology
- Ca. 495–429 BCE; preserved bust, Roman copy
- Location
- Athens
- Relevance
- Civic leadership and the construction of political memory
- Scope
- Expanded chronological wing · outside the initial core of Greeks
- State in museum
- no dedicated stop; outside the main chronological scope
- Status on the books
- without presence; editorial reserve
A closer look
About 1 min to read · 1 section. Further reading and sources · free access. Editorial review recorded: .
The second life of the bust in Tivoli
The modern history of this piece is reconstructed through collectors’ letters. Although Charles Townley recalled a discovery in 1780, Gavin Hamilton’s correspondence already announced it in April 1779. The find occurred in excavations by Domenico de Angelis in Tivoli, not in Athens. The bust passed through Giovanni Volpato and Hamilton before entering the Townley collection in 1783; it reached the British Museum in 1805. This documented chain allows us to follow a Greek object by its model, Roman by its manufacture and later turned into a collector’s antiquity.
- Museum · British Museum · Portrait bust of Pericles, 1805,0703.91Access recorded: .
Reference images and provenance
No verifiable entrance photograph is preserved for this representation. You may consult its documentation, but we would not present its face as an exact reconstruction.
Additional visual documentation
A cited publication does not establish which image was used to create the character.
Sources and references
- British Museum · inscribed bust of Pericles, 1805,0703.91
- The Met · Chiton, Peplos, Himation
- The Met · Marble statue of a woman
Consult the material footprint and your institutional record
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