Demetrius I Poliorcetes

.Video The collection of sculpture from the Museo del Prado , “reduced, but exquisite“, according to its director, houses exceptional pieces that rarely transcend, but whose importance for historiography is undoubted. Such is the case of one of the few Hellenistic bronzes that are preserved and that has just been restored by the museum’s workshop. The recovered monumental head corresponds, according to the identification of the Prado, to the Hellenistic general and king Demetrius I , called Poliorcetes, who lived between 336 and 283 BC. Before it was thought that it corresponded to an effigy of Alexander the Great, then to Demetrius of Falero and later to Lysimachus. The idealization of the physical features of bronze has led to confusion, since the Macedonian king was the forerunner of this practice by which kings and dignitaries were identified with gods and heroes. “It is difficult to determine his identity,“ says Prado in the catalog published on the occasion of his recovery. There is evidence of his a