Marble head of a man

Unknown

3rd century BCE · Marble (white with fairly large crystals, probably from the Greek islands) · Greek and Roman Art

This head of a young man with wavy, upswept hair turns slightly toward the left. The parted lips and frowning eyebrows give the face an anguished expression appropriate to a funerary context. The head, preserved to the base of the neck and roughed out behind, was made for insertion onto a torso, possibly carved from a material less expensive than marble such as limestone. This suggests that it belongs to a western Greek workshop, where imported Greek marble was used sparingly.

Artist

Unknown

Date

3rd century BCE

Medium

Marble (white with fairly large crystals, probably from the Greek islands)

Culture

Greek, South Italian, Tarentine

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Credit line

Purchase, Mrs. Martin Fried Gift and Arthur Darby Nock Bequest, 1997