Portrait Head of a Man
Can I see it?
Yes, on view now
Where is “Portrait Head of a Man” now? Getty Villa, Getty Villa, Gallery 209, Early Roman Sculpture, Los Angeles. Yes, on view now. Checked October 5, 2026.
Closed· opens tomorrow at 10:00 AM
On public display.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the sculpture
A middle-aged man with high cheekbones, a wide mouth and heavy-lidded eyes is the subject of this portrait. His facial features are highly individualized, but his identity remains unknown. One clue to his identity is the fillet or thin headband holding his long hair in place. Although the fillet is often a royal attribute, poets and intellectuals would sometimes wear one, especially in this thin string-like form. Also, the man's hairstyle may mark him as an intellectual rather than a ruler. His long, limp, unkempt locks may proclaim his indifference to material things, an attitude in keeping with one more concerned with matters of the mind than the body. Hellenistic rulers, on the other hand, tended to favor a voluminous, tousled hairstyle derived from that of Alexander the Great.
Read on
It is difficult to determine whether this portrait is a Greek work produced in the first century B.C. or a later Roman copy of such a work. Certain stylistic and technical features, such as the deeply drilled channel between the lips, appear to be Roman, but this type of statue was not one that Roman artists frequently copied.
Getty Villa
Details
- Accession number
- 96.AA.168
In the catalog
Sources
- Getty Villa
- Image: Getty Villa — J. Paul Getty Museum (Open Content)
