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Barnebys HQ
Brahegatan 10
BOX 5038
114 37 Stockholm
All auctions / Sculptures / Roman Miniature Marble Head of a Youth with Cap
Roman, Imperial period. A miniature marble head, carved in the round at a scale small enough to rest in the palm, presenting a round, fleshy face with heavy-lidded almond eyes, a short nose, and full, softly parted lips. Fine striated locks sweep forward in comma-like strands across the brow, capped by a smooth, close-fitting band or skullcap that arcs over the crown, a feature sometimes associated with youthful or Eastern figures in Roman art. The unarticulated pupils and gently modeled cheeks suggest an Early Imperial date, when Julio-Claudian portraiture favored smooth surfaces and restrained expression. Broken at the neck, the piece likely once belonged to a small statuette or votive figure rather than a life-size portrait, the kind of domestic-scale sculpture that populated household shrines and private collections. Small-scale marble heads of this type occupy an uncertain ground between portraiture and generic type. The close-fitting cap has invited varied readings: a pilos or Phrygian-style cap marking an Eastern or servile figure, the headgear of an attendant or camillus in cult service, or simply a stylized rendering of a hairnet or diadem. Comparable caps appear on figures of Attis, on the Dioscuri, and on genre statuettes of boys, and without the body the identification cannot be settled. What the carving does record clearly is the Early Imperial preference for smooth, unpierced eyes and chisel-drawn hair, a manner inherited from Augustan classicism and abandoned by the later 2nd century, when drilled pupils and deeply undercut curls became the norm. Item # 204570
Estimate:$500
To the auctionView all items fromArtemis Fine ArtsorSculptures
Estimate:
$500
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