Portrait of a Boy, on a modern bust

Roman art

This bust was reported in 1828 in the portico of the PalazzinaBorghese along with fifteen others displayed on an equal number of shelves. The portrait, which is set on a modern bust, depicts a boy with full cheeks and a small mouth turned upward in a slight smile. The hair is arranged in a central braid that ends in two locks on the forehead. This style was inspired by that of Octavia and Livia, sister and wife, respectively, of Augustus, which was used until the end of the Julio-Claudian age for portraits of children. The Borghese portrait dates to the same period.

Object details

Commentary

This portrait depicts a boy with a round face and plump cheeks, set on a modern bust. The head is in a frontal pose and the hair is elaborately styled in small locks woven into a braid that runs along the top of the head and ends on the forehead with a curl. The oval face has the soft features typical of children. His almond-shaped eyes have well-defined eyelids, and the line of the brows joins with those of the nose. The small, partially open mouth is turned upward at the ends in a slight smile. The modern bust is clothed in drapery that falls in a V shape across the chest. The hairstyle, inspired by Augustan fashion, is a simplified variation on that of Octavia, sister of Augustus, and later, Livia, his wife, at the end of the first century BCE. The iconographic formulae were drawn from Hellenistic art, in which a braid running across the top of the head to the forehead was typical of portraits of both boys and girls. The braid was still widely used throughout the Julio-Claudian dynasty, when it was associated with portraits of girls. Fruitful comparison can be made based on the hairstyle with a portrait of a girl in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, found in the Prima Porta area near the Villa of Livia (Caskey 1925, p. 203, no. 119). Although in some ways different, the flat braid running along the middle part in a portrait of a girl in the Museo Nazionale Romano shares strong similarities with the Borghese sculpture (Felletti Maj 1953, p. 77, no. 133). Another head in the Boston Museum has similar childlike features, although lacks the typical braid (Poulsen 1923, no. 32, fig. 35).

The sculpture was cited for the first time in the PalazzinaBorghese in 1828: ‘In the Portico of the above-said Casino […] No. 16 Busts on as many shelves’ (Archivio Apostolico Vaticano, Arch. Borghese 348, Galleria e Museo. Titoli diversi, fasc. 33, 1828, c. 6r). In 1893, Venturi counted fourteen busts on the shelves (p. 12). In the literature, it is typically described along with the other busts displayed in the portico, without a detailed description. In 1957, Calza was the first to describe it individually: ‘Head of a girl from the Neronian period, only partly ancient, bust not original’ (p. 14, no. 130). Moreno initially described it as a girl with a hairstyle dating to the Julio-Claudian period and deriving from the iconography of Hellenistic cupids. Later, however, he determined that it is instead a boy, but his view of the iconographic model remained the same (Moreno 1980, p. 6; Moreno, Viacava 2003, p. 61, no. 3).

Based on stylistic analysis, we can propose a date for the sculpture in the first half of the first century CE.

Giulia Ciccarello