Heraclitus of Ephesus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, and a native of the city of Ephesus, then part of the Persian Empire. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom. From the lonely life he led, and still more from the apparently riddled and allegedly paradoxical nature of his philosophy and his stress upon the needless unconsciousness of humankind, he was called "The Obscure" and the "Weeping Philosopher".

This bust has a very unclear origin and is could have been 'perfected' from several other original representations of Heraclitus. The piece itself was cast by an 'E. Gastecloux' in 1792 from a mould at The Academy of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg.