1968.22

Marble Portrait Head of a Young Man

Purchased. Max. ht 25cm; chin to top of head 23cm; max. width 20.8cm.

Fine-grained smooth white marble. The nose, the ears and an area behind the right ear are damaged. The back of the head is somewhat worn above.

The head is that of a young man with the beginnings of a beard that run some way under the chin. The mouth is rather small and taken in deeply at the corners. The eyes have drill-holes to mark the pupils and lightly engraved circles for the irises. The hair shows a fair amount of drill-work but without undercutting.

A terminus post quem is provided by the treatment of the beard and the eyes that cannot be earlier than late Hadrianic (d. AD 138). Note the sideways glance of the eyes that first comes into vogue with the portraits of Marcus Aurelius (Emperor AD 161-180). The treatment of the hair with all the drillwork shows that it is approaching Severan in date. The portraits of Geta, e.g. V. Poulsen, Les portraits romains II no. 136, pl. 217, and the young Caracalla, e.g. H.B. Wiggers and M. Wegner, Das römische Herrscherbild III, 1. Caracalla bis Balbianus (Berlin 1971) pll. 2-4, are at a stage slightly later than this. Perhaps ca AD 170-190. See also now the remarks of K. Fittschen, even though about portraits in bronze: “Zum Aufkommen der Markierung von Iris und Pupille an römischen Porträts aus Bronze und zu ihrer Verwendbarkeit für Datierungszweck, Archäologischer Anzeiger 2006.2, 43–54.

Sotheby (London), Sale Cat., 18 June 1968, no. 154 (ill.); J.R. Green with B. Rawson, Catalogue of Antiquities in the Australian National University, A.N.U. (Canberra, 1981) 96.