Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This fragmentary bust depicts a bearded male with his head turned upward and slightly to his left (1). The hair is wavy, and the beard is rendered in puffy locks. Although the face is damaged and worn, the eyes and mouth are still visible. Drapery does not appear to have been rendered on the preserved part of the bust. The back is flat and featureless. The head is mounted rather crudely on a terracotta fragment.
The head is probably a fragment, but other similarly small busts are known (2). It is not clear, however, what the original object would have been, whether a furniture fitting, a portion of a statuette, or some type of applique; it could also be meant to represent any number of bearded individuals, such as philosophers, deities like Zeus or Poseidon, or even mortals from the Hadrianic period into the third century CE.
NOTES:
1. Very similar pieces can be seen in J. Debord, “Le faciès monétaire de Villeneuve-Saint-Germain et ses éléments de datation,” Gallia 52 (1996): 61-78, esp. 71-72, fig. 31.1; and M. G. Benedettini, Il Museo delle Antichità Etrusche e Italiche 3: I bronzi della collezione Gorga (Rome, 2012) 488, no. 1497.
2. Compare N. Zadoks-Josephus Jitta, W. J. T. Peters, and W. A. van Es, Roman Bronze Statuettes from the Netherlands 2: Statuettes Found South of the Limes (Groningen, 1969) 26-27, no. 12; M. T. Falconi Amorelli, ed., Todi preromana: Catalogo dei materiali conservati nel Museo Comunale di Todi (Todi, 1977) pl. 80.a; J. Bonnet, P. Velay, and P. Forni, Les bronzes antiques de Paris, Collections du Musée Carnavalet (Paris, 1989) 112, no. 46; A. Kaufmann-Heinimann, Götter und Lararien aus Augusta Raurica: Herstellung, Fundzusammenhänge und sakrale Funktion figürlicher Bronzen in einer römischen Stadt, Forschungen in Augst 26 (Augst, 1998) 123, no. 171; and P. Donevski, “Bronze Find at Durostorum,” in The Antique Bronzes: Typology, Chronology, Authenticity. The Acta of the 16th International Congress of Antique Bronzes, Organised by The Romanian National History Museum, Bucharest, May 26th-31st, 2003, ed. C. Muşeţeanu (Bucharest, 2004) 131-37, esp. 132, nos. 1-4.
Lisa M. Anderson
