# The Metropolitan Museum accessions and later publishes a marble head of Epicurus

Date: 1911

## The fact

In 1911 the Met accessioned a Roman copy of a Hellenistic Epicurus portrait type (11.90), later a public Heilbrunn/collection object. The sitter did not sit in New York.

## Context

A public portrait in a civic museum is a shared image of a named teacher. It can support teaching and also freeze a face as a brand.

[Epicurus](/people/epicurus) is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

Official edition, museum, archive, or agency page and an independent publisher independently describe this instrument.

Official or archival record: Met — marble head of Epicurus (11.90) (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/248475; Metropolitan Museum of Art).

## Significance

A museum head is a cultural-access path, not a verified death-mask.

A museum head is a cultural-access path, not a verified death-mask.

## What is established and what is not

Established as a dated public record of this instrument.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

## People

- Epicurus: https://factrail.ai/people/epicurus

## Drivers

- Social Cohesion: https://factrail.ai/drivers/social-cohesion

## Sources

- https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1873-0820-726
- https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/248475

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/ep-met-epicurus-head