Portrait Head of a Youth (1–100 CE): Art, History and Details

Portrait Head of a Youth (1–100 CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Several unusual features of this head suggest that its carving was never finished in antiquity. These include unfinished hair around the ears, small bumps remaining in the hair near the front and top of the head, and the lack of a finely polished surface. Although said to have been found in Egypt, the head is carved of dolomitic marble thought to come from the Saliari region of the northern Greek island of Thasos.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait Head of a Youth
• Date: 1–100 CE
• Culture: Egypt, Alexandria, Roman
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: marble
• Dimensions: Overall: 29.5 cm (11 5/8 in.)
• Collection: GR - Roman
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1947.188

A detail from the museum

The carving of this head was never finished.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Wunderlich, Silvia A. "A Marble Head of a Youth." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 35, no. 3 (1948): 37-39.
• Herrmann, John J. "Thasos and the Ancient Marble Trade: Evidence from American Museums," in J. Paul Getty Museum. Marble: Art Historical and Scientific Perspectives on Ancient Sculpture, eds. M. True and J. Podany, pp. 73-100. Malibu, Calif: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1990.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.

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.