Portrait of a Young Man

roman school

This bust was mentioned in the Palazzina Borghese for the first time in 1833, when it was displayed along with fifteen others on shelves on the wall of the Portico.

It portrays a nude young man, covered solely by a paludamentum that falls over his chest, fastened over his left shoulder with a fibula. A balteus crosses diagonally across his chest and must have originally held an object that has not been preserved. The head is turned to the left and the face wears a look of pride and surprise. 

The sculpture, which is only mentioned individually in the guide to the Galleria published in 1981, seems to be modern and carved in the nineteenth century, probably when the galleries stripped by the sale to Napoleon were rehung.

Recent technical analysis has revealed that the marble of the bust and that of the head are in different states of preservation. There are visible traces of corrosion on the bust, probably due to exposure to external agents.

Object details

Commentary

The head of this idealised young man is turned to the left. The robust, oval, softly modelled face has a smooth, unwrinkled, broad forehead and a slightly protruding chin. The eyes have thin, well-defined eyelids and are framed by light, regular eyebrows. The irises are incised, and the pupils are carved in a half-moon shape. The tear ducts are clearly described. The full lips of the mouth are closed. The figure’s wavy locks are medium length and frame the forehead, coming down to the neck and falling untidily in the back onto the nape.

The torso is nude except for a paludamentum, a kind of mantle, which falls gently onto the chest and is fastened over the left shoulder by a circular fibula decorated with four incised petals. A balteus crosses diagonally over the barely indicated pectorals, resting on the right shoulder, and probably once held an object like a weapon or bag.

This sculpture is probably one of the busts that was reported the portico of the Palazzina Borghese in 1833: ‘Sixteen busts on as many shelves, which protrude from the walls (Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese, C., p. 41, no. 9). In 1893, Venturi reported a smaller number: ‘14 busts on shelves along the walls’ (p. 12). Moreno was the first to mention the portrait individually, writing in 1981 that he considered it to be a work from the Trajanic period on a later bust (p. 101). In 2003, the scholar questioned the authenticity of the sculpture, holding it to be ‘entirely modern, the hairstyle and features inspired by Antonine portraiture’ (p. 92, no. 49).

The portrait would seem to be in the vein of official Antonine portraiture. In particular, the absorbed, proud expression is comparable to the first iconographic type of the young Commodus, an example of which is in the Capitoline Museum (inv. MC 0454; Bergmann 2015, pp. 74–83).

The head and bust, carved in different marbles, were considered not original, with the bust in particular held to be modern. Based on stylistic analysis, both parts would seem to be modern.

Recent technical analysis has also revealed marked corrosion on the surface of the bust, especially on the horizontal planes: evidence of time spent outdoors not found on the head. This difference could be due to the different marbles used to carve the two elements.

As recently observed by Ciofetta, it was probably made during the first decades of the nineteenth century, carefully based on ancient models (Ciofetta 2022, pp. 297–298).

Giulia Ciccarello