Portrait Head of a Man (c. 100 CE): Art, History and Details

Portrait Head of a Man (c. 100 CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Although the identity of this man remains a mystery, its realism is striking. Far from idealized, it convincingly depicts a solid middle-aged man with wrinkled forehead, high cheek bones, and deep-set eyes.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait Head of a Man
• Date: c. 100 CE
• Culture: Italy, Roman
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: marble
• Dimensions: Overall: 26.3 cm (10 3/8 in.)
• Collection: GR - Roman
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1925.944

A detail from the museum

Portrait heads like this could belong to busts, herms, or full-length statues.

Collection credit

Gift of J. H. Wade

Further reading listed by the museum

• Howard, Rossiter. "Two Roman Portraits." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 13, no. 1 (1926): 8-13.
• Bieber, Margarete. 1944. “Roman Sculpture in the Cleveland Museum.” Art in America 32 (April): 65–83.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.

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.