A Wedgwood Black Basalt Library Bust of Cicero (106–43 BC) Roman Orator and Statesman

Epoque: Circa 1780 – 1795

Medium: black basalt

Dimension: 29 cm (11³/₈ inches)

Provenance: EX Private UK collection

Literature: The production of basalt busts by Wedgwood was first undertaken in 1770–71 and the demand for them became considerable. One order from Dublin requested over one hundred. A basalt bust of Cicero was produced from a cast supplied by Hoskins and Grant in 1775.
     The works of the famous Roman politician, statesman and orator, Cicero were almost forgotten during the Middle Ages, but were rediscovered during the Renaissance. Cicero’s influence on European thought and literature then became considerable and ensured that what he found interesting and important in Greek philosophy became the philosophical curriculum of the Renaissance and Enlightenment. His greatest achievement was as the creator of a philosophical vocabulary in Latin and therefore as the transmitter of Greek ideas. He was a philosophical stylist unifying philosophy and rhetoric. He believed that rhetoric enables the statesman educated to wisdom by philosophy to prevail by gaining the consent of a free citizenry.