Head of a youth
Roman, 2nd century
Marble
11 x 8 1/2 in. (27.94 x 21.6 cm)
Gift of Norbert Schimmel, in memory of Betty Marcus, 1984.163

Portraiture was one of the most distinctive types of Roman art. In early Roman religion, wax death masks or realistic portraits of the dead were left in family tombs as ancestral memorials. Under the impact of idealizing Greek portrait sculpture, Roman portraits of the empire became rich, subtle, and sophisticated images, blending the psychological realism of Roman art with the sensuous forms of Greek modeling. A superb example of this brilliant portraiture appears in the head of a young man. His soft, dreamy features are almost weighed down by a gorgeous mass of curly hair. This bravura sculptural style, with its extensive use of the drill and its strong modeling with shadows, is typical of early Antonine art in the middle years of the 2nd century. The boy’s head is close to the type of the young Marcus Aurelius, the future philosopher-emperor, and probably indicates the influence of imperial prototypes on sculpture made for people associated with the Roman court.