Published Catalogue Text: Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums , written 1990
155 Post-Classical or Post-Antique
Bust of a Boy of the Time of Trajan
The right side of the nose is broken off, and the right earlobe is chipped, also one or two locks of hair, and minor chips at the edges of the arms. It has an uneven brown surface, especially around the ears and sides of the neck.
The bust includes the chest to just below the nipples. The head is turned to the left on the shoulders, and the hair is combed forward from the crown in the typical Trajanic coiffure, a stylistic date confirmed by the depth of the bust.
There are a number of such ancient busts, mostly from Rome but including an example reputed to have been found in Essex and now in Copenhagen (Poulsen, F., 1951, p. 470, no. 674b, second supplement, pl. X). The Vatican, Museo Chiaramonti, no. 417, is one of a pair of busts found near S. Balbina in Rome in 1838 and romantically named Caius and Lucius Caesar(s) (Amelung, 1903, p. 382, nos. 417, 419, pl. 61).
A bust of an older boy in same style and perhaps from the same workshop was consigned to auction by a New Jersey private collector (Sotheby Sale, New York, 19 May, 1979, no. 229). The bust in Berlin (no. 1467-R48) has the late Julio-Claudian or Flavian rather than the Trajanic form of the chest and shoulders; this portrait also represents a slightly older boy (Robertson, M., 1975, p. 606, pl. 192a).
Cornelius Vermeule and Amy Brauer
