Head of a Triton

A finely carved marble head of a male youth, captured in the moment of turning towards the true left side. The facial features continue the dynamism of the pose: the upwards-tilted eyes under the slender curved brows and the slightly parted mouth accentuate the sense of a figure caught mid-action.

The notably full lips, with a pronounced cupid’s bow, are opened enough to reveal the line of upper teeth within the mouth; depictions of heroes and mythological creatures carved from the time of the Pergamon Altar onwards commonly reveal their teeth in this fashion. The cheeks and forehead are carved softly and very smoothly on either side of the strong, straight nose, as is the rounded chin. The forehead is unusually short, suggesting that this head comes from a representation of a mythological creature.

The hair grows upwards and outwards from the forehead in long, voluminous waves, framing the face and flowing down to the base of the neck. The waves are carved in a variety of depths, creating the impression of thick and cascading locks.

Along with the smooth, polished planes of the face, the deep drilling suggests the piece is of late Antonine workmanship.
The crown of the head, behind the front layer of curls, is carved with simple waves flattened onto the contour of the skull. The reverse is rough and unworked, suggesting that this piece was originally part of a large-scale relief.

This head bears striking similarity to the pair of tritons now in the Musei Capitolini, Rome (MC1119 and MC1121). Both of the Capitoline tritons exhibit the dynamic, partially turned over-shoulder gaze, with smooth, polished surfaces, long waved locks and full parted lips. They are dated between 180 and 193 A.D. and originally appeared alongside two kneeling Amazons framing the famed portrait of Commodus as Hercules in the Horti Lamiani complex.

Taken altogether, this suggests that this head represents a youthful Triton of the same type and originally appeared as part of a relief composition of monumental scale.

The Tritons have the following appearance. On their heads they grow hair like that of marsh frogs not only in color, but in the impossibility of separating one hair from another. The rest of their body is rough with fine scales just as is the shark. Under their ears they have gills and a man’s nose; but the mouth is broader and the teeth are those of a beast. Their eyes seem to me blue, and they have hands, fingers, and nails like the shells of the murex. Under the breast and belly is a tail like a dolphin’s instead of feet. - Pausanias, Description of Greece (2nd century A.D.), trans. W.H.S. Jones, Litt. D. and H.A. Ormerod (Cambridge and London, 1918), 9.21.1.

Taking their name from the Greek god of the sea and son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, Tritons or Tritones were the half-human, half-fish servants of the major sea gods. This class of mermen was frequently depicted on pottery from as early as sixth-century B.C. Greece and increased in popularity from the late Hellenistic and into the Roman Imperial periods.

At different times, Tritons could be depicted as humans with one long fishtail or a forked tail, often with horse forelegs or wings at the base of the tail and sometimes with crustacean elements. Their representations fall into two types: the elder, bearded kind and youths whose long wavy locks emulate the ever-changing waters of their sea home.

Their human aspects were generally shown with scales or gills, in keeping with Pausanias’s Description of Greece (2nd century A.D.), which was supposedly based on his examination of a Triton specimen exhibited in Rome and a headless one from Tanagra (most likely taxidermied fabrications).
Tritons tended to be associated with particular bodies of water or maritime regions, where they served as guardians of the seas who assist those who travel through their waters. They were also able to calm wild storms or summon sea creatures by blowing on their conch shell horns. They are frequently shown and described as preceding Poseidon’s chariot to calm the waves before his approach.

Thus, their inclusion in sculptural groups was often associated with naval dominion, as in the Capitoline grouping and a cameo of Emperor Augustus, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien (IXa 56).

Tritons also had a more bacchic aspect, akin to satyrs and fauns. They were said to drink the waves as wine and are frequently depicted abducting the female sea nymphs (nereids).
In line with this, Tritons make frequent appearances in sculptural groups representing joyful celebrations, for instance as nereids’ steeds in marine thiasoi (aquatic triumphal processions), like that on the ‘Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus’ in the Munich Glyptothek (239).

According to Claudius Aelianus’s De Natura Animalium (3rd century A.D.), ‘when Poseidon drove his chariot over the waves, all other great fishes as well as dolphins and tritons too, sprang up from their deep haunts and gambolled and danced around the chariot, only to be left utterly and far behind by the speed of his horses’.

In a more sinister role, the Triton’s female counterpart, the Tritoness, was sometimes conflated with the man-eating sirens from Homer’s Odyssey.

Antiquities & Ancient Art: Including Property from the Brummer Collection, Hindman, Chicago, 5 December 2023, Lot 19, front cover, pp. 7, 34-37, 197.

With Piero Tozzi (1882–1974), Florence and New York, by at least 1917.
With the Brummer Gallery, New York, and Henri Daguerre, Paris, initially acquired from the above in exchange in 1917.
With the Brummer Gallery, Paris, having acquired Daguerre’s share, prior to 1933.
Private Collection of Ernest Brummer (1891–1964), acquired from the above, 12 June 1933, accompanied by old collection label, inventory card, photographs, handwritten inventory list from 1964, and post-mortem appraisal.
Thence by descent to his wife, Ella Laszlo Baché Brummer (1900–1999), New York, from 1964 to 1973, then Durham, North Carolina, from 1973 to 1999.
Thence by descent to her nephew, Dr. John Laszlo (b. 1931), Atlanta, Georgia.
Sold at: Antiquities & Ancient Art: Including Property from the Brummer Collection, Hindman, Chicago, 5 December 2023, Lot 19.
U.K. art market, acquired from the above sale until 2026.
ALR: S00270366, with IADAA Certificate, this item has been checked against the Interpol database.

Joseph Brummer (1883–1947)

Joseph Brummer (1883–1947) was born in Sombor, Hungary, and cultivated an interest in the arts from an early age. He studied art and worked as a sculptor, but it is as a connoisseur and art dealer that he is best remembered.

He moved to Paris and formed a partnership with the Maison Delhomme to sell antiquities at 67 Boulevard Raspail. In November 1910, he set up his own gallery, Maison Joseph Brummer, at the same address and moved to a new location a couple of months later. He called his new gallery Brummer: Objets d’art anciens.

His younger brothers Imre (1889–1928) and Ernest (1891–1964) soon joined him and the gallery was renamed Brummer Frères: Curiosités.

The brothers worked in Paris for two years, before Joseph and Imre emigrated to New York in 1914, where they opened a gallery on 57th Street. Joseph’s Paris gallery closed after the First World War and in 1921 he moved to New York full-time, becoming one of the pre-eminent dealers of his time, specialising in medieval and Renaissance European art, and Classical, Ancient Egyptian, African and pre-Columbian objects. He also hosted exhibitions of modern painters.

Joseph built up an extraordinary private collection during this time, a major portion of which was bought by the Metropolitan Museum of Art on his death in 1947. Much of his remaining collection was sold in 1949 at Parke-Bernet Galleries.

Ernest Brummer (1891–1964)

Born in former Yugoslavia, Ernest Brummer (1891–1964) moved to Paris to study art history at the Sorbonne and the École du Louvre, where he studied with Salomon Reinach, who had recently been appointed director of the Musée des Antiquités Nationales. Later, with his brothers, Joseph (1883–1947) and Imre (1895–1928), he opened an antiquities shop.

Ernest remained in Paris after Joseph and Imre left for the United States in 1914 at the beginning of the First World War. The gallery would remain at 3, boulevard Raspail until the early 1920s, when Ernest would relocate it to 36, rue de Miromesnil, after Ernest and Joseph had a falling out.

After the war, Joseph opened a second shop at 203 bis, boulevard Saint Germain. The brothers were reconciled by 1924 and participated in a transatlantic partnership until Joseph's death in 1947.

After joining the business in Paris, Ernest travelled extensively throughout Europe to acquire works of art for the gallery. The Brummers initially dealt in African tribal arts before branching out into ancient, medieval, contemporary French and pre-Columbian art.

Ella Baché Brummer (1900–1999)

Ella Baché Brummer (1900–1999, née Laszlo) was a Jewish woman born in 1900 and raised in Hungary. She wanted to study medicine like her brother, Dr. Daniel Laszlo, but she was not allowed to attend medical school.

Because of this, she studied at the University of Budapest and became the first woman to graduate as a pharmacist there at the age of 26. She pursued a career in pharmacy and went on to produce her own scientific skin-care products.

After a brief and unhappy arranged marriage to a Hungarian banker by the name of Bacher, she moved to Paris, where she worked as a consultant for a top skincare company. Following this, she founded her own company, Ella Baché, and opened her own shop on rue de la Paix in 1936. A salon bearing her name still operates at this location today.

Around 1941, Ella was forced to flee the Nazi invasion of Paris. After her brother obtained her a visa, Ella left France for the United States, leaving Europe on the last ship out of Lisbon in 1942.

Ella met Ernest Brummer the day after she arrived in America, at a dinner with her brother and his patient (Ernest). Ella and Ernest lived together for eight years in Manhattan before marrying.

Ella established a new laboratory for her cosmetics company on 55th Street, and the couple split their time between New York and Europe, to allow Ernest to continue running the gallery and Ella her shop at rue de la Paix.

Apparently, their decision to marry was sparked by their time travelling. Often on their long transatlantic sea voyages, Ernest would be invited to sit at the Captain’s table to dine, but Ella was not allowed to join him due to their marital status.

After Ernest’s death, Ella moved with his collection to a new home in Durham, North Carolina. After five years Ella decided to return to New York to resume running her business, but she left the collection in the Durham house.

Prior to Ernest’s death, Ella took no part in the running of the gallery, but afterwards she took over the management of his collection, representing it to Brummer’s clients, museums and other contacts.

Brummer allowed staff from the Metropolitan Museum, New York, with whom all the Brummer brothers worked closely, to visit the collection for research. She helped with the development of the Medieval Art in Private Collections exhibition, which ran between October 1968 and January 1969, loaning thirteen small objects under the name Mrs. Ernest Brummer.

She also contributed to The Secular Spirit: Life and Art at the End of the Middle Ages exhibition in 1975 and sponsored another in 1981.

She continued to donate objects to the Met, including 48 pieces of French medieval stained glass in 1977. She also donated and sold objects to the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Brooklyn Museum, as well as numerous academic institutions and private collectors.

Dr. John Laszlo (b. 1931)

Dr. John Laszlo (b. 1931) was born on 28 May 1931 in Cologne, Germany, son of Ella Brummer’s brother, Dr. Daniel Laszlo.

He moved to New York with his parents on 21 September 1938, the date of ‘The Long Island Express’ hurricane. The storm prevented them from docking at Ellis Island, and they had to be pulled by tugboats into New York harbour.

Daniel Laszlo, who specialised in cardiovascular physiology, found a job in cancer research at Mount Sinai Hospital. Here he studied folate antagonists in mice and found the derivative folic acid could produce reductions in breast cancer in mice. John would go in on the weekends and help to change the mice’s cages.

When Babe Ruth was admitted to the hospital with symptoms of throat cancer, Dr. Laszlo’s boss suggested treating Ruth with the cancer drugs tested on the mice. Despite Laszlo’s ethical concerns, the treatment went ahead and Babe Ruth went into remission.

Following this, Dr. Laszlo chose to leave the hospital and was offered an opportunity to start a new programme at Montefiore Hospital in New York. Here he established the Neoplastic Disease Division.

Following in his father’s footsteps, John also studied to become a doctor. He joined the Acute Leukemia Service at the National Cancer Institute in 1956, at a time when a cure for childhood leukaemia seemed far beyond possibility.

He worked as part of a team providing as much palliative care as possible as they researched a cure. Building on this experience, Laszlo went on to write the book The Cure of Childhood Leukemia: Into the Age of Miracles.

Dr. Laszlo served for a time as national vice president for research in the American Cancer Society and is now Professor emeritus at the Duke University Medical Center.