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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1979.401
Title
Small Head of a God or Youth, copy after a 5th century original
Classification
Sculpture
Work Type
head, sculpture
Date
1st-2nd century CE
Period
Roman Imperial period, Middle
Culture
Roman
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/287359

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Greek island marble
Dimensions
3.9 cm (1 9/16 in.)

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, David M. Robsinson Fund through the Estate of Therese K. Straus
Accession Year
1979
Object Number
1979.401
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Published Catalogue Text: Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums , written 1990
107

Small Head of a God or Youth

The nose is damaged, and there is a break through the middle of the neck. The cap (or the hair) behind curls around. The brow is smooth, suggesting this area may have been finished in paint.

This is a Severe Style head in miniature, from a small statue, perhaps of Hermes, with the petasos on his head and the wings attached where holes remain behind the ears. The fifth century B.C. antecedents of this head compare well with the so-called Strangford Apollo from Lemnos in the British Museum, about 485 B.C. (Vermeule, C., 1982, p. 223, fig. 189). The athletic victor in the Museo Civico, Agrigento, is the Sicilian counterpart of this Attic or Greek island god or youth (Hanfmann, 1967, p. 313, pl. 95).

A number of decorative herms flanking doorways in the houses of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and surrounding towns have something of the general aspect of this head, suggesting a date in the first century A.D. before the eruption of Vesuvius. The small size indicates a votive or funerary purpose, probably as part of a statuette. The archaistic and Severe Style qualities of this little head in a Pompeiian decorative context can be illustrated by a sculpture of unknown provenance, definitely not a forgery, in the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (Ridgway, 1972, pp. 123, 235, no. 52).

Cornelius Vermeule and Amy Brauer

Publication History

  • Fogg Art Museum, Fogg Art Museum Annual Report, 1978-1980 (Cambridge, MA, 1982), p. 173
  • Cornelius C. Vermeule III and Amy Brauer, Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 118, no. 107

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu