- Museum number
- 1805,0703.112
- Description
-
Marble portrait bust of a young boy, a worshipper of Isis; his hair is cut short except for two locks over the right ear, symbolising the locks of Harpokrates.
- Production date
- 150-200 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 24.13 centimetres
-
Width: 16 centimetres
-
Depth: 16 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- Cook 2011, nr. 127:
‘A head of a male child, who had been dedicated to Osiris, as appears by the single curl of hair upon the right side of the head. purchased in Rome 1772’ (TY 12/3, dining room 41).
Seen by Townley at Albacini’s during his second visit to Rome, but actually purchased later for 40 Scudi through Jenkins along with the previous item (TY 8/74/11), the price rendered by Townley as £15 (TY 10/7).
Said to have belonged previously to the Adams collection (GR 1, head 7).
Date:
Mid second century AD (Gonzenbach); II AD, initiate in cult of Serapis (Walker)
Drawings:
* Townley drawing 2010,5006.218.
Bibliography:
- Synopsis of the Contents of the British Museum (1808) X.40.
- Ancient Marbles of the British Museum, X, pl. 18, fig. 2.
- A Guide to the Graeco-Roman Sculptures in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities (Synopsis of the Contents of the British Museum) (2 vols., London 1874 [2nd ed. 1879] and 1876), I, no. 79.
- A. H. Smith, A Catalogue of Sculpture in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum, Vol. III (London 1904), 172-3, no. 1935
- G. Becatti, La Critica d’Arte 3 (1938), 51.
- V. von Gonzenbach, Untersuchungen zu den Knabenweihen im Isiskult der römischen Kaiserzeit (1957), 137-8, K 6 (bibl.), pl. 7.
- H. Rühfel, Das Kind in der griechischen Kunst (1984)
- H. R. Goette, ‘Beobachtungen zu römischen Kinderporträts’, AA 1989, 467, figs. 18-19, note 64.
- Susan Walker, Roman Art (London 1991), 37, fig. 42.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
1997 22 Oct-1998 30 Apr, Italy, Rome, Fondaione Memmo, Ancient Faces
2022 19 May – 25 Sept, London, British Museum, G35, Feminine Power
- Acquisition date
- 1805
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 1805,0703.112