A Roman marble Archaistic head of a youthful male
Circa 1st Century B.C.-1st Century A.D.
Possibly a god, his short hair arranged in six symmetrical rows of tight snail curls, the face frontal and symmetrical, with deeply-set almond-shaped eyes, prominent nose and pert lips, 28.6cm high注脚Provenance:
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 14 May 1973, lot 186.
Gottfried and Helga Hertel collection, Cologne, acquired at the above sale.

From the 2nd Century B.C. onwards, sculptors harked back to styles of the Archaic period to add a sense of prestige and venerability to their work. The adoption of archaising styles grew in popularity during the 1st Century B.C., reflecting the increasing political and cultural dominance of the Roman Empire and, with it, the prominence of Romans as the primary patrons of Greek art (C. Hemingway, 'Retrospective Styles in Greek and Roman Sculpture', Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, New York, 2000).

In this work, the sculptor references Archaic sculpture of the 5th to early 4th Centuries B.C. in the rendering of the curled coiffure, heavy-lidded eyes and high cheekbones. For a similarly archaising male head dating to c. 75 A.D., see C. Vermeule, Greek and Roman Sculpture in America, California, 1981, no. 157.