REIGN 37-41 A.D.

This bust belongs to a group of eight other known miniature portraits of the Emperor Caligula to survive from antiquity. According to E. Varner (p. 102 in From Caligula to Constantine: Tyranny & Transformation in Roman Portraiture), “the small scale of these representations suggests that they may have served a ritual function and were displayed in public or household shrines and altars associated with the worship of the emperor’s divine spirit or genius.” Some of these portraits were violently disposed of in the Tiber River following Caligula’s murder in 41 A.D., which “effectively cancelled any devotional aspects which the portraits may have held and served as a proclamation of loyalty to the new emperor Claudius and his regime" (op. cit., p. 103).

Closest to the present example are the busts in the Leon Levy and Shelby White Collection and in the Brooklyn Museum, where the emperor is shown surmounting an orb (op. cit., nos. 6 and 9).