Portrait of Tiberius

Della Porta Giovanni Battista and workshop

(Porlezza c. 1542 - Rome 1597)

The second emperor of Rome, Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus, is depicted with a substantial respect for the iconography known since antiquity: a square face and broad forehead; his hair is divided into short locks forming the scissors and pincer motif on the forehead, and the mouth is small. 

The portrait belongs to the series purchased by Pope Paul V in 1609 together with the collection of Giovanni Battista Della Porta, and exhibited from 1615 in the Villa Pinciana. Critics, based on the style, tend to attribute its execution to Della Porta himself. Given the dissimilarity of the heads, he must in some cases have reworked reused parts, relying heavily on the workshop to execute the drapery.

Object details

Commentary

The emperor Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus, who reigned from 14-37, has a large head with a broad square forehead, framed with hair arranged in small locks that create the pincer and scissor motif typical of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. The facial features can be traced back to an ancient prototype, which belonged to the Grimani Collection in the 16th century and is now in the National Archaeological Museum in Venice. Derived from that work are the smooth eyes with well-defined eyelids and linearly rendered eyebrows, the even nose, small mouth and protruding chin. In the African marble bust is a paludamentum worn on the right shoulder, where it is turned up, and fastened on the left with a pointed circular fibula. A tunic and lorica can be glimpsed underneath, and on the left shoulder the lorica has a trim in a scale pattern. The drapery has the same linear and flattened folds found in other busts in the series.

Together with eleven other busts, the portrait is part of the series known as the “Twelve Caesars”, comprising the figures described by Suetonius and belonging to the sculpture collection of Giovan Battista della Porta, which the artist bequeathed to his brothers Tommaso and Giovan Paolo. The latter, in October 1609, sold them - together with the entire collection - to Paul V, who bought them on behalf of Giovanni Battista Borghese. The busts were first moved to the Palazzo Borghese (Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Archivio Borghese, 7923, f. 121v-122r, in Faldi 1954, p. 51, doc. II) and, from 1615, placed in the entrance hall of the Villa Pinciana on walnut stools carved by Giovanni Battista Soria (Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Archivio Borghese, 4173, 12 August 1615, Conto di lavori di legno fatti da G.B. Soria per la villa di Porta Pinciana, in Faldi 1954, p. 51, doc. III). 

Faldi writes that two other busts were added, Scipio Africanus and Hannibal the Carthaginian, not included in the initial collection and dispersed after the reorganisation of the collection in the last quarter of the 18th century, when the 12 busts were moved to niches in the walls of the same entrance hall (1954, p. 50).

Confused by Baglione (The Lives, 1642, p. 74) with the series sold in 1562 by Tommaso della Porta il Vecchio to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (conserved in the Galleria di Palazzo Farnese in Rome), they were considered by Faldi to be an autograph work by Giovanni Battista. This is not only based on documentary evidence, but also by comparison with certain works by the artist, whose cold and archaeologising approach is applied here to a generic imitation of ancient models (Faldi 1954, p. 50).

The heads show stylistic differences: for some of them, which have incised eyes with irises and pupils in the shape of an arch and the surface of the face well-polished and smooth, the autography appears consistent with the rest of Giovanni Battista Della Porta's works. In another group, consisting of portraits with large eyes lacking irises and pupils and differing in the rendering of the hair, it is more likely that the Lombard sculptor reworked and adapted reused parts. The repetition of facial features and similarly draped busts in several examples of the series also suggests a serial production method in the Della Porta workshop.

Sonja Felici