Portrait of a Boy, on a non-ancient bust
This portrait, inserted in a non-ancient, loricate bust, is of unknown provenance. The head, which is slightly turned to the right, portrays a boy of about ten or twelve years old, with an oval face, a small, closed full mouth and large eyes with thin, well-defined eyelids framed by broad, arched eyebrows. Most of his forehead is covered by a thick fringe with swallow-tail locks described with short incisions. Although the sculpture does not provide enough information to securely identify the person portrayed, it could be a portrait of a Julio-Claudian prince (perhaps Britannicus?), if not a private portrait inspired by official portraiture.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
Classification
Medium
white marble; bust in polychrome marble
Dimensions
height with bust 47 cm; head 21 cm
Provenance
Borghese Collection, Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese, 1833, C, p. 44, no. 50. Purchased by the Italian State, 1902.
Conservation and Diagnostic
- 1826 - Felice Festa
- 1996/97 - Consorzio Capitolino
Commentary
This portrait, inserted in a non-ancient, loricate bust, is of unknown provenance. In 1820, it was restored by Felice Festa, who also worked on other busts earmarked for display in Room I in niches high up on the walls, as part of the ambitious installation of the new collection in the Casino of Villa Pinciana.
The head, which is slightly turned to the right, portrays a boy of about ten or twelve years old, with an oval face, a small, closed full mouth and large eyes with thin, well-defined eyelids framed by broad, arched eyebrows. Most of his forehead is covered by a thick fringe with swallow-tail locks described with short incisions. According to Paolo Moreno, the portrait depicts a member of the Julio-Claudian family, based on physiognomy and the treatment of the hair. More specifically, he argued that it is a portrait of Britannicus, son of Claudius and Messalina and born in 41/42. As we read in Suetonius, he was his father’s favourite and marked as his successor. The boy, of poor health, was murdered in 55, shortly after his father’s death, simplifying the rise to power of Nero, son of Claudius’s wife Agrippina the Younger and Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and adopted by Claudius in 50 CE. The iconography of Britannicus has not been definitively established. We know from inscriptions that his portrait was included in the imperial images of the time. His likeness is only preserved in a few rare sestertii, most of which are of poor quality and difficult to read. The simultaneous circulation of portraits of Nero has complicated the attribution of portraits to one or the other (see Poulsen 1951; Amedick 1991; De Maria 2015; for more recent reinterpretations, see Pollini 2021). Moreover, the portrait sculptures that can be attributed to the young prince with some certainty show him at four or five years old (see Getty Villa, inv. 82.A.A; Musée d’Art ed d’Histoire, Genève inv. C186) or at most eight (see the portrait from Velleia, MAN Parma, inv. 826; on the various attributions, see Pollini 2021, pp. 256–257, note 96).
Although the Borghese head does not provide enough information to securely identify the person portrayed, as is often the case with portraits of children from this period, it could be a portrait of a Julio-Claudian prince, if not a private portrait inspired by official portraiture.
Jessica Clementi
Bibliography
- Indicazione delle opere antiche di scultura esistenti nel primo piano della Villa Borghese, Roma 1840, p. 10.
- A. Nibby, Roma nell’anno 1838, Roma 1841, p. 913.
- Indicazione delle opere antiche di scultura esistenti nel primo piano della Villa Borghese, Roma 1854 (1873), p. 12.
- A. Venturi, Il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Roma 1893, p. 21.
- G. Giusti, La Galerie Borghèse et la Ville Humbert Premier à Rome, Roma 1904, p. 20.
- V. H. Poulsen, Nero, Britannicus and Others, Iconographical Notes, in “Acta Archaeologica”, 22, 1951, p. 129.
- P. Della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese in Roma, Roma 1954, p. 8.
- R. Calza, Catalogo del Gabinetto fotografico Nazionale, Galleria Borghese, Collezione degli oggetti antichi, Roma 1957, p. 15, n. 148.
- P. Moreno, Museo e Galleria Borghese, La collezione archeologica, Roma 1980, p. 12.
- P. Moreno, S. Staccioli, Le collezioni della Galleria Borghese, Milano 1981, p. 101.
- P. Moreno, C. Sforzini, I ministri del principe Camillo: cronaca della collezione Borghese di antichità dal 1807 al 1832, in “Scienze dell’Antichità, Storia, Archeologia, Antropologia”, I, 1987, pp. 339-371, in part. p. 348.
- R. Amedick, Die Kinder des Kaisers Claudius. Zu den Porträts des Tiberius Claudius Britannicus und der Octavia Claudia, in “Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. Römische Abteilung”, 98, 1991, pp. 373-395.
- P. Moreno, L’antico nella stanza, in Venere vincitrice: La Sala di Paolina Bonaparte alla Galleria Borghese, Roma 1997, pp. 73-117, in part. p. 92.
- P. Moreno, C. Stefani, Galleria Borghese, Milano 2000, p. 71, n. 10.
- P. Moreno, A. Viacava, I marmi antichi della Galleria Borghese. La collezione archeologica di Camillo e Francesco Borghese, Roma 2003, pp. 149-151, n. 116.
- S. De Maria, Il ciclo statuario: composizione e cronologie, in S. De Maria, L'Augusteum di Fanum fortunae: un edificio del culto imperiale nella Fano d'età romana, Milano 2015, pp. 103-119.
- J. Pollini, New Observations on the imperial reliefs from the Sabasteion at Aphrodisias and the Portraiture of Claudius, Britannicus, and the Young Nero, in “Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts”, 136, 2021, pp. 231-323.
- Scheda di catalogo 12/99000439, G. Ciccarello 2021
