Portrait of Otho
This bust in porphyry and alabaster portrays the Emperor Marcus Salvius Otho. His physiognomy is youthful, with no wrinkles marking his face. His peculiar hairstyle develops vertically, although the sculptor did not give it detailed definition: indeed the locks fall perfectly on his forehead, forming a single line. His bust is lined with a sort of armour which is difficult to identify and which forms a contrast to his outer mantle, whose folds are accurately carved and whose raised hem creates a continuous groove along his neck.
The bust comes from the family palazzo in Campo Marzio, where it formed part of a decorative programme in the Gallery of Mirrors, together with 15 other similar works. Since at least 1832 the series has been on display in Room 4 of Villa Pinciana.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
Classification
Period
Medium
porphyry and oriental alabaster
Dimensions
Provenance
Included in decoration of the Gallery of Palazzo Borghese in Campo Marzio between 1674 and 1676 (H. Hibbard, ‘Palazzo Borghese Studies. II, the Galleria’, The Burlington Magazine, 104 (1962), pp. 9-20); Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese 1833, C, p. 49, no. 111. Purchased by Italian state, 1902.
Conservation and Diagnostic
- 1995/1996 C.B.C. Coop. a.r.l.
Commentary
The portrayed subject is Marcus Salvius Otho, who was Roman emperor for about three months in 69. His physiognomy is depicted rather generically, without attention to detail. His thick, vertically developed hairstyle is not well defined, as the locks are not separated and fall over his forehead in a continuous line. His forehead is smooth, without lines that indicate a particular expression. The rest of his face shows only shallow ridges, probably to highlight the young age of Otho, who died at 37. His nose is hooked, and he has a slight double chin. He wears a cuirass, whose shoulder strap is barely delineated, and the traditional mantle of the commander of the army (paludamentum), which is buttoned with a round fibula on his right shoulder and folded over on his left. The mantle’s raised hem forms a continuous groove around his neck. The bust rests on a moulded base.
The work forms part of a series of 16 busts in porphyry from Palazzo Borghese in Campo Marzio: they reproduce the Twelve Caesars narrated by Suetonius, with the addition of Nerva and Trajan and second versions of Vitellius and Titus. They were formerly placed in recesses in the gallery and framed by an arrangement of plaster reliefs depicting key episodes in the life of each and personifications of their respective virtues; this decoration was executed by Cosimo Fancelli between 1674 and 1676 (Hibbard 1962). The busts remained here until roughly 1830 (Nibby, p. 360): two years later, they are documented as forming part of the display of Room 4 of Villa Pinciana (Nibby 1832, p. 96). To the series was now added a second bust of Vespasian, sculpted by Tommaso Fedeli in 1619, which had been in the Gladiator Room.
According to documents from the Borghese Archive, the series was composed, as we have seen, of the ‘Twelve Caesars’, with the addition of Nerva and Trajan as well as second versions of Vitellius and Titus (Vatican Secret Archive, AB, b. 5688, no. 15, published in Hibbard 1962, appendix, doc. I, pp. 19-20). In 1830 Nibby saw the series when it was still in Campo Marzio, describing the works as ‘16 busts with heads in porphyry, representing the 12 Caesars and 4 consuls’. Two years later, when they had been moved to Villa Pinciana and displayed along the wall of Room 4, he listed them as Trajan, Galba, Claudius, Otho, Vespasian (two exemplars) Scipio Africanus, Agrippa, Augustus, Vitellius (two exemplars), Titus, Nero, Cicero, Domitian, Vespasian, Caligula and Tiberius; this catalogue was confirmed by the 1833 Inventario Fidecommissario.
Yet if this description (which includes a second Vespasian, executed by Tommaso Fedeli in 1619 and transferred from the Gladiator Room) corresponds to the current state of the series, we are left with several uncertainties: to begin with, we must ask what happened to the busts of Caesar, Titus and Nerva, which were present in 1674-76 but do not form part of the series today; secondly, we must wonder who the fourth consul referred to by Nibby in 1830 could be, given that currently only three are represented (Agrippa, Cicero and Scipio Africanus); and finally, we must inquire where the busts of the consuls came from. It is therefore possible that the sculptures displayed in the gallery, which were already present in Palazzo Borghese, did not correspond to those envisioned for the iconographic programme of the vault: this discrepancy may have indeed complicated the identification of the portraits. This theory is supported by the common date of execution of the busts, which critics believe were all sculpted in the same period during the 17th century (Faldi 1954, pp. 16-17; Della Pergola, 1974; Moreno, C. Stefani, 2000, p. 129; Del Bufalo 2018, p. 116).
Sonja Felici
Bibliography
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