DiscussionLife-size porphyry bust of Tetrarch. From Athribis (Augustamnica). 284-305. DESCRIPTION (object)Bust. H:59, Head H: 22 cm . Porphyry. The lower end of the bust has an unusual triangular form. The foot of the bust was worked from the same stone and is missing. The surface is polished, the surface of the hollow back of the bust is rough. PROVENANCE From Athribis, nome capital in the south of the Nile delta (Ammian 22,16,4) DESCRIPTION (subject) The bust shows a man clad in tunica and chlamys. The chlamys is closed by an early version of a crossbow fibula. The head is turned to its right. It has short-cropped hair which is set off from the flesh as a mass, short rectangular sideburns, and a beard indicated by incisions in the surface of cheeks and chin and by contour-lines. The incisions on the surfaces of hair and beard are regularly arranged in rows, a principle found on the lost head from Antiochia LSA-523and – with less quality – already on the groups in the Vatican (LSA-840, LSA-841). The enormous eyes are comparable to these examples too, but also to those porphyry heads, which have no characterization of the texture of hair and beard: such as the heads from Gamsigrad (LSA-845), Tekija (LSA-1042) and Nis (LSA-1041). The hair recedes slightly at the corners of the brow. The facial expression seems less tense than that of Diocletian in the Vatican portraits (LSA-840), but less mild than that of the Vatican Caesars (LSA-841) and more similar to the portraits in Antiochia (LSA-523) , Tekija (LSA-1042) and Nis (LSA-1041). DATE / INTERPRETATION The names of nearly all of the tetrarchs have been proposed for the bust from Athribis, but there seems no argument which helps to decide between them. Both the portrait and the style of the drapery connect the bust with the central Tetrarchic products of the Egyptian workshops; for example, the colossal statues from Alexandria (LSA-1003) and Hadrianopolis(LSA-455), the Togatus in Berlin (LSA-1004) and the groups in the Vatican (LSA-840, LSA-841) and at Venice (LSA-4, LSA-439). A closer date in the period of the tetrarchy is impossible to give. Main ReferenceDelbrueck, R., Antike Porphyrwerke. Studien zur spätantiken Kunstgeschichte, vol. 6, Berlin 1932, 92-4, pls. 38-9 (Licinius?)Grimm, G., Kunst der Ptolemäer- und Römerzeit im Ägyptischen Museum Kairo , Mainz 1975, 21-2, no. 29, pls. 58-61 Discussion ReferencesCalza, R., Iconografia Romana Imperiale. Da Carausio a Giuliano (287-363 d. C.), Rome 1972, 144, no.55, pl.37.104-105 Ensoli, S. and E. La Rocca (eds.), Aurea Roma: dalla città pagana alla città cristiana, Roma 2000, 560-561, no. 216 (L. Faedo: Tetrarchic) L'Orange, H. P., Das spätantike Herrscherbild von Diokletian bis zu den Konstantin-Söhnen, 284-361 n. Chr. Das Römische Herrscherbild. III. Abteilung ; Bd. 4 , Berlin 1984, 107, pl. 19 (Galerius) L'Orange, H. P., Studien zur Geschichte des spätantiken Porträts, Oslo 1933, 22, 111, no. 14, figs. 42 and 44 Weitzmann, K. (ed.), Age of spirituality : late antique and early Christian art, third to seventh century : catalogue of the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, November 19, 1977, through February 12, 1978, New York 1979, no. 5 |
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