Portrait of a young man
White marble
h.23 cm
1st half of 1st century AD
A high-quality and fine-executed portrait depicting a young boy. The carving exquisiteness is clearly evident thanks to the good preservation of the surface, with minor chips and a shallow, vertical scraping on the left side. The face turns slightly to left, showing the classic somatic features and shape of the Augustus Age. For that reason, it can be compared with the portraits of the young princes Gaius and Lucius Caesar. The hairstyle is the one typical from the Augustus Age with the hair combed on overlapping lines, also showing resemblances with portraits of Emperor Augustus himself: there’s a hair-fork on the left side, while an hint of pincers appears on the right, with parallel, curved, central locks.
A comparable example for this statue could be the portrait of Augustus today at the Louvre in Paris and formerly part of the Borghese collection. The sculpture can be dated to the first half of 1st century AD.