Portrait Head of Augustus, attached to a togaed body

Roman art

This imposing statue-portrait portrays Augustus as Pontifex Maximus, the high priest of ancient Rome. The figure is larger than life size and its weight is placed on its left leg, while the right one is free, with the foot moved slightly back. The head and body are turned to the right, in a slight indication of movement. His right arm is held out in front of his body, and he is holding a patera (added during restoration) in his right hand. His left arm is bent close to his side, and he holds a volumen (a book scroll) in his left hand. He is wearing a voluminous toga, with a mantle that covers his head, in accordance with priestly practice (velato capite). There is a capsa, a little cylindrical box used for keeping documents, near his feet. While the facial features and hair echo official portraiture of the Princeps, the body does not belong to the head and was carved later. The portrait head was carved in an urban Roman workshop during the late Augustan age.

Object details

Commentary

This sculpture of a male figure is larger than life size. It is a portrait statue, but the head does not belong to the body, which we know dates to a later period, based on formal and stylistic analysis. The portrait head draws on the official image of Augustus and was attached to a body wearing a toga to present the emperor as Pontifex Maximus, the high priest of Rome and head of the College of Pontiffs, a position to which he was elected on 6 March 12 BCE.

The majestic figure places its weight on the left leg, while the right seems to be free, with the foot slightly moved forward. The head and body are turned to the right, in a slight indication of movement. His right arm is held out in front of his body, and he is holding a patera in his hand. His left arm is bent close to his side, and he holds a volumen (a book scroll) in his hand. The figure is entirely enveloped in a voluminous toga and wears a kind of sandal called calcei patricii. There is a capsa, a little cylindrical box used for keeping documents, near his feet. The mantle that covers his head, the priestly velato capite, or veiled head, was added when the head was attached to the body, at which point the back of the head was also modified.

The patera, which was used for libations during sacrificial rituals, is a reference to priestly duties and was added during a restoration, but the idea for it was likely drawn from the original iconography. The nose is also a modern addition. During conservation work in 1995, the plaster added over time to cover up pins and joins was removed.

The facial features and head were already modified during antiquity, probably to turn it into a portrait of Augustus. The short, well-defined hair with two swallow-tail locks on the forehead and pincer locks at the temples is typical of his portraiture. Generally speaking, the style of the portrait is an attempt to revive classical forms. And so, while the head can be traced to an urban Roman workshop active during the late Augustan period, the body can be dated to between 70 and 80 CE, based on the treatment of the surface of the marble, the rendering of the drapery, the sinuous folds, the classicising style and the shape of the sinus (the fabric gathered on the hip) and the umbus (the semicircular fold of fabric that seems to create a kind of pocket) (Moreno 2003, p. 140).

As for the identity of the figure portrayed, Nibby thought that it might be Caligula (Nibby 1832, pp. 43–44). It was recognised as Augustus by Bernoulli (Bernoulli 1882, p. 32) and Felletti Maj identified it, within the context of the emperor’s official portraiture, as of the ‘Prima Porta’ type (Felletti Maj 1958). The Prima Porta, or Haupttypus, type was developed during the period immediately following Octavian’s assumption of the title ‘Augustus’ in 27 BCE. It differs from his earlier portraiture not just because of his more mature appearance but also because it is no longer influenced by portraits of Hellenistic sovereigns, embracing a different, and more solemn, take on the classical ideal.

Although it is correct to identify the portrait as the Prima Porta type, Augustus’s face in sculptures of that type is younger and more idealised than the Borghese variant, which portrays Augustus older than in the Ara Pacis reliefs and younger than the Via Labicana Augustus, which has a frosty, reflective air, but is nevertheless wholly in keeping with this statue type. This ideologically and iconographically important model was the reference for countless togaed portrait statues of magistrates, priests and high-ranking private citizens during the Imperial age.

Widely produced between the late Augustan period and the end of the Severan age (with differences in the handling of the toga), there are an especially large number from, besides Rome, other cities and towns where they were publicly displayed or used for funerary contexts (on this statue type, see Cadario 2011).

In the Inventario del Fidecommesso Borghese of 1833, this sculpture is listed as no. 17, and as having been previously displayed in the Salone (p. 42).

Clara di Fazio