Today at Sotheby’s, following an extraordinary achievement in scholarship, an ancient Roman Figure of Aphrodite was reunited with her Head after the two elements had been separated for at least 50 years. The figure was purchased in today’s auction of Antiquities for $968,000 by the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University. Immediately following the fall of the hammer, the Museum also purchased the head by private sale. This remarkable achievement was made possible by extensive research done by Sotheby’s Antiquities experts. Today’s auction totalled $4,584,172, above a high estimate of $4.1 million.

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Nearly three months ago, Mrs. Lawrence Copley Thaw, Sr. of New York, consigned a Marble Figure of Aphrodite, Roman Imperial, dating to circa late 1st century/early 2nd Century A.D., to Sotheby’s June 2006 sale of Antiquities. As is not uncommon with Antiquities, the figure was missing elements, in this case, her head and one arm. After in-depth research, Sotheby’s experts discovered an engraving of the complete figure, published in 1836 when it was part of a private collection in Paris. The rendering of the head in the engraving immediately struck Mr. Heintz as familiar; he remembered that Sotheby's had sold a similar head on December 11, 2002 (lot 12), possibly the one belonging to Mrs. Thaw’s headless figure.

Sotheby’s then contacted the private collector from Houston, Texas who had purchased the head in 2002; and she graciously offered to bring it to New York to see if Mr. Heintz’s theory proved correct. When the head arrived in New York, Mr. Keresey and Mr. Heintz realized that, based on the dimensions of the neck, grain of the marble, weathering of both pieces, style of carving, tilt and turn of the head, combined with the existence of the engraving, the head did in fact belong with the body. The owner of the head then agreed to make the piece available for private sale exclusively to the successful purchaser of the body in today’s auction.