Head of the Ares Borghese

In 1807 Prince Camillo Borghese, husband of Napoleon's sister Pauline, sold 344 ancient sculptures from his family's collection in Rome to the French state. Among them was a full-length statue of Ares, the Greek god of war, which went to the Louvre and is still there. Because of that sale scholars speak of the Ares Borghese, and every other copy of the figure, this head in Munich included, carries the family's name.

The head leans slightly to the right under an Attic helmet that the museum describes closely. On the brow guard two crouching dogs flank a palm-leaf ornament. On the crown two griffins flank a sphinx, and of the sphinx only the left forepaw survives.

The lost original belongs to the late 5th century BC. The travel writer Pausanias saw a statue of Ares by the Athenian sculptor Alkamenes in the market square of Athens, and some scholars have linked the type to it, a link that remains a proposal. The museum dates this copy, with a question mark, to around AD 200.