Portrait Bust of a Man
Unknown Artist
27 BCE–14 CE
Medium
bronze
Dimensions
38.1 × 21.6 cm
Classification
Sculpture
Department
Greek and Roman Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust
Accession Number
1928.860
About this artwork
The realistic features of this fine life-sized portrait include wrinkles in the forehead and beside each eye, and very naturalistic ears, protruding but not quite symmetrical. The stylized hair is neatly arranged and suggests a date in the Augustan period, although some scholars have seen it as late Republican. Likely once topping a shaft as a herm bust, the portrait’s subject—now unknown—would have been identified by an inscription.