DiscussionPortrait head of short-bearded man, with togate statue. From Lingones (Lugdunensis I). Early fourth century. DESCRIPTION (Object)Over life-size head, worked separately. H: 47, W: 21, D: 23 cm. Large-grained marble The head was worked separately and has a large roughly picked tenon. There is a crack that runs from the right shoulder up through the head. The nose is missing, and there is damage in the right eyebrow and the fringe above it. The surface is heavily weathered. The head has been re-cut from an earlier portrait which had longer hair; some of the original locks are visible near the top of the back right portion of the head. Hair has been rather crudely taken away do make indentation at the juncture of the skull and neck. There is a significant portion of marble behind the right ear. The hair has been taken back and rendered with a flat chisel. Above the brow are a series of openings made with a drill. The beard and moustache are short and rendered in raised curving locks. The eyes are marked by deeply drilled U-shapes which form the iris; the pupils are the areas defined within the U. PROVENANCE The body of a statue was found in Langres in 1660 or 1668 (Jesuit father Jacques Vignier). According to a document of 1721 a head was found at the same time and was sent with the statue to Louis Phélypeaux, count of Vrilliere. In 1742, the statue was in the gardens at Versailles. The head, here under discussion, is depicted on the statue in a print of Etienne Baudet of 1677. There is some doubt as to whether this is in fact the head which was found with the statue since the original documents note the head and body were of the same marble and the statue from which this head was removed was of a different marble. Given the number of early fourth-century togate statues and the cut of this neck, I suspect that the head and statue were indeed found together and were probably a pastiche made in the later third or early fourth century. DESCRIPTION (Subject) The head shows a bearded man with straight hair and a light beard and moustache. The hair is combed forward and curls over the brow. The fringe has three marked openings, over the centre of each eye and directly above the nose. Two smaller openings or forks appear at the corners of the brow. The face is long and narrow. The brow has a single crease. The eyes are large and the upper eyelids have a high arch. The mouth is broad and has a full lower lip is full. The chin is deep. The head turns to the right. More of the right shoulder is included than the left shoulder. On the left side, the area of insertion is vertical. De Kersauson writes that the head must have come from a cuirassed statue; given the broader area of exposed right shoulder, it seems to me that it should have come from a togate figure. DATE AND HONORAND The re-working of the head and the handling of the eyes place this portrait in the late third or fourth century. The treatment of the fringe hair has a technical similarity to that of LSA-590, a portrait which may have been used both in the Tetrarchic and Constantinian period. The head has been identified as Maxentius. The Dresden-Stockholm type, (seeLSA-896, LSA-897, and LSA-2662), however, probably should be taken as close versions of the official portrait model of Maxentius, and this head differs in hair scheme and beard. Nonetheless it does share a general similarity, and one should consider that this head has been re-cut and that typologically exact version of models were less common in the late third-century. Here one might even imagine that the openings or forks in the hair were attempts to recreate the particular fringe of the Dresden-Stockholm type. However, this argument is without secure basis. Interestingly Fittschen and Zanker refer to this head in a footnote as an example of the ‘Zeitgeschict’ of the Valentinian period. Main Referencede Kersauson, K., Les portraits romains II; de l’année de la guerre civile (68-69 après J-C) à la fin de l’Empire , Paris 1996, 520-521, no. 248Discussion ReferencesDonati, A. and G. Gentili, Costantino il Grande. La civiltà antica al bivio tra Occidente e Oriente, Milan 2005, 233-4, no. 45 (D. Roger: Maxentius) Fittschen, K. and P. Zanker, Katalog der Porträts in den Capitolischen Museen und den anderen kommunalen Sammlungen der Stadt Rom, Band I, Mainz 1985, 159, fn. 10 (example of the Valentinian facial type) Rosso, E., L'Image de l'Empereur en Gaule Romaine. Portraits et Inscriptions, Paris 2006, 250-252, no. 46, fig. 37 (Maxentius) |
[Sleeker_special_clear]