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Lot Essay
Publius Aelius Hadrianus served as emperor for twenty-one years, from 117-138 A.D. As D.E.E. Kleiner notes (p. 238 in Roman Sculpture), there are more surviving portraits of Hadrian than of any other emperor besides Augustus. This proliferation owes itself to two factors: his long reign and his extensive travels across the Roman Empire, as statues of Hadrian were erected by cities in anticipation of or in appreciation of his visits.
Hadrian's depiction marks a consequential moment in Imperial portraiture. In addition to being depicted as a never-aging adult (he became emperor at the age of forty-one and is depicted this age in all his portraits), Hadrian was also the first emperor to wear a beard, a trend that each of his adult successors would adopt until the 4th century. As T. Opper remarks (p. 69 in Hadrian: Empire and Conflict), “Many scholars have seen in Hadrian’s attire an echo of his general character and outlook, replacing the marital attitude of Trajan with an interest in culture and the arts…In this reading, Hadrian’s beard becomes a Greek beard, the distinctive outward sign of the graeculus Hadrian. For a full beard had long been associated with the Greeks, especially the Greeks of the classical past to which their modern descendants increasingly turned…”
Kleiner (op. cit., pp. 238-240) divides Hadrian’s portraits into six main types, distinguished primarily by subtle distinctions in the arrangement of the emperor’s hair. The loss to some curls in this portrait make precise identification of its type difficult, but comparisons can be made to the so-called Cuirass-Paludamentum-Bust Baia type and its two successors that are defined primarily by the emperor’s comparatively broad and round face and the generally disorganized treatment of the curls that fall across his forehead. Also compare this portrait to the one at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, attributed to the Imperatori 32 type, no. 34 in B.S. Ridgeway, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design: Catalogue of the Classical Collection.
Hadrian's depiction marks a consequential moment in Imperial portraiture. In addition to being depicted as a never-aging adult (he became emperor at the age of forty-one and is depicted this age in all his portraits), Hadrian was also the first emperor to wear a beard, a trend that each of his adult successors would adopt until the 4th century. As T. Opper remarks (p. 69 in Hadrian: Empire and Conflict), “Many scholars have seen in Hadrian’s attire an echo of his general character and outlook, replacing the marital attitude of Trajan with an interest in culture and the arts…In this reading, Hadrian’s beard becomes a Greek beard, the distinctive outward sign of the graeculus Hadrian. For a full beard had long been associated with the Greeks, especially the Greeks of the classical past to which their modern descendants increasingly turned…”
Kleiner (op. cit., pp. 238-240) divides Hadrian’s portraits into six main types, distinguished primarily by subtle distinctions in the arrangement of the emperor’s hair. The loss to some curls in this portrait make precise identification of its type difficult, but comparisons can be made to the so-called Cuirass-Paludamentum-Bust Baia type and its two successors that are defined primarily by the emperor’s comparatively broad and round face and the generally disorganized treatment of the curls that fall across his forehead. Also compare this portrait to the one at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, attributed to the Imperatori 32 type, no. 34 in B.S. Ridgeway, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design: Catalogue of the Classical Collection.