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拍品專文
The bust-length portrait with an integral profiled plinth and uninscribed tabula with scrolling edges, all sculpted from a single block of stone, made its first appearance during the reign of Trajan (see for example the portrait in the Museo Capitolino, Rome, no. 172 in D.E.E. Kleiner, Roman Sculpture). This portrait depicts a corpulent man of advanced age with thick wavy hair brushed forward, reminiscent of the hairstyle popularized by the Emperor Hadrian. For similar veristic private portraits from the Hadrianic period, see nos. 81-83 in K. Fittschen and P. Zanker, Katalog der römischen Porträts in den Capitolinischen Museen und den anderen kommunalen Sammlungen der Stadt Rom, Band II.
That our portrait depicts a man of high rank is confirmed by his paludamentum (the cape of a military officer) secured by a circular brooch over his left shoulder and the baldric worn diagonally across his chest and over his right shoulder, which secured a weapon. According to S.B. Matheson (p. 140 in Kleiner and Matheson, eds., I Claudia, Women in Ancient Rome), such insignia were indicative of members of the elite senatorial or equestrian class whose participation in military campaigns provided the opportunity for political advancement or financial gain.
The bust was photographed by C.C. Vermeule, the noted Classical art historian and curator of Greek and Roman Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, at Syon Lodge in the 1950s, likely while he was traveling the United Kingdom researching collections for his influential articles “Notes on a New Edition of Michaelis: Ancient Marbles in Great Britain.” The series ran in The American Journal of Archeology from 1955-1959, although the present bust was not featured in those articles.
That our portrait depicts a man of high rank is confirmed by his paludamentum (the cape of a military officer) secured by a circular brooch over his left shoulder and the baldric worn diagonally across his chest and over his right shoulder, which secured a weapon. According to S.B. Matheson (p. 140 in Kleiner and Matheson, eds., I Claudia, Women in Ancient Rome), such insignia were indicative of members of the elite senatorial or equestrian class whose participation in military campaigns provided the opportunity for political advancement or financial gain.
The bust was photographed by C.C. Vermeule, the noted Classical art historian and curator of Greek and Roman Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, at Syon Lodge in the 1950s, likely while he was traveling the United Kingdom researching collections for his influential articles “Notes on a New Edition of Michaelis: Ancient Marbles in Great Britain.” The series ran in The American Journal of Archeology from 1955-1959, although the present bust was not featured in those articles.