CIRCA LATE 2ND-3RD CENTURY A.D.

This striking fragment preserves a winged Eros wearing a cloak fastened by a circular brooch. Sculpted in high relief, the youthful god is depicted facing right but looking back over his shoulder. His fleshy arm cross his body, likely once holding one side of a portrait tondo. He has a face with dimpled cheeks and chin, and his hair is fashioned in short, wavy locks above his forehead, with longer curls along the side of his face, all deeply drilled. The overlapping feathers of his raised wings frame the scene. For a similar winged Eros supporting a portrait tondo see the sarcophagus in Sant'Agnese fuori le mura, Rome, fig. 150 in A.M. McCann, Roman Sarcophagi in The Metropolitan Museum of Art.