Head of Youth (c. 470 BCE): Art, History and Details

Head of Youth (c. 470 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Although the face is now badly broken and quite weathered, this head was originally of high-quality workmanship, as can be seen in the extremely fine carving of the wavy hair preserved at the top and back. The slight asymmetry of the neck and facial features suggest that the head, which likely belonged to a full-bodied sculpture just under life-size, turned gently to one side.

Object facts

• Title: Head of Youth
• Date: c. 470 BCE
• Culture: Sicily(?), Greek, Severe period
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: marble
• Dimensions: Overall: 19.4 x 13.1 x 15.9 cm (7 5/8 x 5 3/16 x 6 1/4 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1928.195

A detail from the museum

The Severe style, named for its sober simplicity, marks the beginning of the Greek Classical period, c. 480–450 BC.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Howard, R. “Archaic Head of a Youth.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 16, no. 1 (1929): 2, 7-8.
• Ridgway, Brunilde Sismondo. “A Greek Head of the Severe Period.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 56, no. 3 (1969): 121–26.
• Ridgway, Brunilde Sismondo. The Severe Style in Greek Sculpture. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.