Head of a Roman Emperor, Fragment of a Monumental statue

ca. 200 century CE

This imposing head, discovered in the River Tiber at the end of the 18th century, originally crowned a statue approximately four meters in height. Its monumentality and the use of the semi-precious material bronze both suggest that it should be regarded as an imperial portrait. The thick hair in dense ringlets and the treatment of the beard point to a work of the late 2nd century CE. The subject may have been one of the short-lived “emperors” who fought for power on the death of the cruel Commodus (161–192).