Marble Portrait of a Julio-Claudian Man in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 2007

Marble portrait bust of a man
Roman, Julio-Claudian period, mid-1st century AD

Accession # 26.60.3

This powerful portrait bust incorporates a large expanse of chest, a stylistic characteristic indicating that it was carved toward the middle of the 1st century AD. Most surviving portraits worked in this hard realistic manner date to the 1st century BC, but the style continued in fashion until the mid-1st century AD and was revived intermittently thereafter.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.