A Roman marble torso of Dionysus, Circa 1st Century A.D. Estimate £180,000 - 200,000 (€250,000 - 270,000). Photo: Bonhams.

The youthful athletic figure with softly defined musculature, standing in contrapposto, with his weight resting on his right leg, the left arm raised, a small strut supporting the elbow of the right lowered arm, the hair falling on the shoulders in two flowing tendrils, 51cm high

Provenance: Spanish private collection, P.U.U., acquired in the mid-1980s.
With Michel Dumez-Onof, London, in the 1970s. Accompanied by a copy of a photo of the torso with the Michel Dumez-Onof gallery stamp on the reverse.

Literature: This youthful depiction of the god is a Roman copy inspired by a Classical Greek type by Praxiteles. For a similar depiction of Dionysus from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, cf. C. Vermeule, Greek and Roman Sculpture in America, Berkeley, 1981, p. 66, fig. 38. Both torsos depict Dionysus with meandering shoulder-length tresses and sinuous well-defined youthful physique.

BONHAM'S. ANTIQUITIES, 16 Apr 2015 10:30 BST - LONDON, NEW BOND STREET