This marble portrait head (the big bust it’s perched on is post-antique, so I’ve ruthlessly cropped it) found near Otricoli and later entering the famed Torlonia collection is the very finest of its kind.
Republican portraits of its ilk are usually described as ‘veristic’, and their popularity seems to have drawn on their ability to project the virtues of a long life distinguished career. A lot has been written about how they may or may not be rooted in the italic tradition of wax death masks (imagines maiorum) which presumably captured every nook and cranny on the the deceased’s face. It’s a compelling thought.
But looking at really top tier portraits such as this one, it is clear that so much more is at work that an attempt towards accurately depicting life (or death).
Artistically it is a tour de force! This gentleman displays the hallmarks of advanced age…his teeth aren’t quite there, cheeks sunken, jowls are sagging, hair is long gone, etc. But the patterning of his wrinkled skin, all creases and folds, transcends into a hyper-realism that is pure artistic imagining.
And this conscious invention is what (to me) places the “veristic” style in the centuries long and fascinating tradition of ancient self-representation. Values and styles could change (often did and rapidly), but within this trajectory there were no accidents or flippant choices and reality was rarely if ever the goal – the details were always meaningful with the messaging’s success down to the sculptor’s skill. And man, did all those forces come together here!
