CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.

Beginning in the Hellenistic period, sculptors began to glamorise the much earlier Archaic period by producing stylistically nostalgic works now called 'archaistic'. By the first century B.C., these archaistic types became widespread throughout the Roman Empire, reflecting Roman admiration of Greek artistic achievements, as well as demonstrating Rome's overtaking of Greece as the dominant political and cultural force in the Mediterranean.

In this work, the sculptor alludes to the Archaic style of the kouros with the symmetrical rendering of the curls and the sharp grooves of the almond shaped eyes. Kouroi were considered representations of Apollo and this could suggest that our head is a depiction of the god. For similar, cf. M.D. Fullerton, Archaistic Style in Roman Statuary, Mnemoysyne, 1990, p. 156, no. 60.