Lot 44
ROMAN MARBLE HEAD OF A MAN
ROMAN EMPIRE, JULIO-CLAUDIAN PERIOD, C. 1ST CENTURY B.C. - 1ST CENTURY A.D.
Auction: 26 November 2026 from 14:00 GMT
Description
carved marble, over life sized, depicting a young man, clean shaven, with cropped haircut of comma locks incised across the forehead, round eyes with eyelid and tear-trough articulation set in a deep inner socket, an aquiline nose, high and prominent cheekbones, and a straight mouth with small lips, raised on a bespoke mount
Dimensions
28cm high
Provenance
Private collection, Philadelphia, acquired in the 1970s
Footnote
The head appears to date to the early imperial period at Rome with similarities between the head and the Ara Pacis portrait type of the Emperor Augustus (27 BC- AD 14). Due to the facial similarities in portraits of Augustus and his successor Tiberius, made in an effort to give the illusion of blood relation between them, the head also resembles Tiberius (AD 14-37). This head could be an imperial portrait but cannot be certainly attributed. Zeitgesichte, meaning ‘period face’, could equally mean that this head is a portrait of a private individual from the early imperial period, perhaps taking inspiration from imperial forms of representation.