What material are most antique busts?

Bronze and marble lead and are almost level with each other, at 133 and 128 titles out of 532 on Sellingantiques. Plaster and alabaster make up a substantial second tier. Terracotta, parian, wood and stone appear in smaller numbers, and serpentine, malachite, granite, sandstone, copper, cast iron, basalt and glass paste each turn up only once or twice.

Why are so many dated just 19th century?

Because that is how the category files itself. The dated field runs 1750 to 1950, 288 listings carry a clean year, and the single largest bucket is the unspecific '19th Century' at 161. The same imprecision shows in titles, where '19th', 'c19th' and '19thc' are all in use. Decade buckets, where they exist, cluster from the 1860s to the 1930s.

What is a Grand Tour bust?

A souvenir brought home from Italy, commonly a bronze or alabaster reduction of a celebrated antique head. Forty-two titles use the term. They often come as matched pairs, Antinous and Ariadne or Apollo and Diana, and the same pairings recur across several different dealers.

Which subjects appear most often?

Classical figures dominate. Apollo appears in sixteen titles, Diana in fourteen and Venus in eleven, alongside Ajax, Menelaus and Antinous. Napoleon leads the named portraits at thirteen, with Shakespeare, Dante, Byron, Homer and Queen Victoria recurring. Library plaster brings in Augustus, Walter Scott and Hippocrates.

Are antique busts signed?

Some are. 'Signed' appears in twenty-nine titles, roughly one in twenty, and named sculptors show up far more often in the upper part of the range than the lower. Where a sculptor is recorded, it is as a signature on the piece or as an attribution. Foundry marks and edition numbers are not something the listings record.

How many busts come up in a year?

Around sixty-six a year, spread across 156 dealers, so no one dealer sets the tone of the category. That spread is why the same subjects recur from different sources, and why matched Grand Tour pairs show up under several names.