CIRCA LATE 3RD CENTURY A.D.

For a similar head with an oak leaf crown see no. 165, p. 224 in von Bothmer, ed., Glories of the Past, Ancient Art from the Shelby White and Leon Levy Collection. Regarding the head in the Levy collection, Anderson comments, op. cit., p. 224, "the incremental abstraction of third-century portraiture takes a penultimate step with this imposing likeness. The eyes do not betray the sitter's psychology, but, instead, stare upward vacantly. Naturalism is no longer the primary goal of the sculptor: The roughly tooled hair, uneven surface of the face, and planar volumes combine to make this a schematic depiction of a public individual, rather than a subtle characterization of the sitter's mood or disposition."