Bronze Head of a Boy with a Victor's Band

In 1798, after French troops had occupied Rome, the antiquities of the Villa Albani, gathered in the 18th century by Cardinal Alessandro Albani, were confiscated and shipped to Paris. This bronze head went with them. When Napoleon fell in 1815 the works could return to their owners, but much of the Albani collection was sold in Paris rather than carried home, and Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria bought this head there for the sculpture museum he was planning in Munich.

The boy is a victor. The band tied round his hair is the kind awarded to winners of athletic contests. His head turns slightly to the right and looks down. The eye sockets are empty now, and the museum says they once held eyeballs of silver with pupils of red garnet.

The museum dates the bronze to the 1st century AD, a Roman cast or reworking of a Greek model from around 450 BC.