Full of swagger and pre-Caracallan glower, this is one of my favourite portraits of all time, showing a young Roman military man (identity unknown) likely from the mid-2nd century A.D.
There is so much to love here: the cultivated, designer stubble, feathery eyebrows, assertive turn of the head, and those barely parted, full lips. He is really a revelation from so many angles, with the sliced off nose somehow not detracting from his undeniable magnetism.
Those luscious, pasta-like curls are the real sculptural tour de force, deeply carved and intricately thought out. The way the locks are sprouting organically from the scalp is the hallmark of the highest level of marble-carving and anatomical understanding. (I would venture to say a level only rarely reached in the portraiture of the imperial family…).
I might also venture to say (hugely subjective, and coloured by my love of Classical sculpture) that this is a glimpse into the continuity of Greek workshops through the Roman period. The level of sensitivity and skill is unusual, with (in my eyes) aspects recalling more strongly early Classical Athenian Herms than Antonine portraiture.
