Cast of Colossal head of Asklepios, 19th century

Unidentified Greek sculptor

RA Collection: Art

Plaster cast from a marble head, believed to come from a colossal statue of Asklepios, a Greek god of medicine and healing dated ca. 325-300 BC. The original head was found at the Shrine of Asklepios on the Greek island of Milos in the Cyclades in 1828.

This marble is now in the British Museum and has drill holes embedded with lead pegs, which suggest that Asklepios would originally have been crowned with a gold wreath. In 1867 the British Museum bought a large collection of antiquities from the heirs of Louis, Duke de Blacas d’Aulps (1815-66). The over life-size figure would probably have held a staff with a serpent wrapped around, known as the Rod of Asklepios, an ancient Greek symbol associated with medicine which is still widely used.