This is quite a face, colossal in scale (clocking in at 64 cm) and unusual in many aspects. Based on comparison with coin portraits, it likely depicts Ptolemy IX (reigning late 2nd – 1st century B.C.).
For these later Ptolemies, the weird bulging eyed hypothyroidic-‘second sight’ look and fleshiness has given way to heavy-browed brooding aspect with those luscious lips and slight hook to the imposing nose (inherited by famous descendent Kleopatra VII). The smooth flesh of the face is carved from the finest Greek island marble (Paros perhaps?) – given the dearth of good marble in Egypt, reserved for the prestige bits of exposed flesh.
The hair and remarkably the beard – migrating down his temples to the underside of the chin – is fashioned in plaster along with a little alteration to the tip of the nose. In this case, the plaster seems to have been added in a secondary life of the portrait…a cheap(ish) way to ‘update’ it. Remarkable, eh?
