A Roman Marble Portrait Head Of A Youth

Material
Marble

Dimensions
Height: 60.2 cm, bust included

Provenance
- Private collection, Europe, circa 17th-18th centuries (based on restoration techniques, according to Sotheby's).
- Benjamin Smith (1941-2021), Atlanta, Georgia, acquired before 1991.
- From the collection of Ben Smith, Atlanta; Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art, Part II, Sotheby's, London, December 7, 2022, lot 123.
- Kallos Gallery, London, 2023 (Catalogue 14, no. 37).

The figure depicted is a young man with smooth forehead and cheeks, tapering to a pointed chin. His eyes feature incised irises and drilled pupils, set beneath thick eyebrows. It is closely related to two other known examples, one preserved in the Capitoline Museums (Sala delle Colombe 32, inv. no. 391), the other in the Musée Saint-Raymond in Toulouse (inv. no. RA 68.1). Its attribution, however, remains more complex.

Although both portraits were once identified as representing Pertinax Caesar, son of the emperor Pertinax appointed princeps iuventutis in 193 AD, a more convincing identification today is that of Caius Fulvius Plautius Hortensianus, son of the prefect of the Praetorium Plautianus (for a discussion of this type of portrait and its attribution, see J.-C. Balty, Les Portraits Romains : L'époque des Sévères, pp. 161-168).