Portrait Head of a Youth (14-68, reworked by the late 4th-early 5th century): Artwork and History

Portrait Head of a Youth (14-68, reworked by the late 4th-early 5th century) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Roman.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

In the Roman world, portraits were often recarved in order to alter the sculpture’s function, meaning, or identity. It is possible that this portrait head was altered at a later date because it includes features associated with different periods. The man’s hairstyle, with locks of hair neatly arranged across the forehead, recalls those worn by men during the Julio-Claudian dynasty (27 BC–AD 68) and again during the reign of the emperor Trajan (reigned AD 98–117). However, the drill marks in his large eyes were likely added at a later date, perhaps even centuries later, when the recarving of portraits became a much more common practice due to shortages of marble.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait Head of a Youth
• Date: 14-68, reworked by the late 4th-early 5th century
• Artist attribution: Roman
• Place of origin: Roman Empire
• Medium: marble
• Dimensions: 35.6 × 21.6 × 16.5 cm (14 × 8 1/2 × 6 1/2 in.)
• Type: Sculpture
• Department: Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
• Reference number: 1889.105

Collection credit

Gift of Martin A. Ryerson

View the original

Explore the artwork in the Art Institute's collection, including its image and the museum's current catalogue details.

The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.