Bust of a Roman, the So-called "Sulla"

Two busts in this room took very different roads before they met. This one's earliest known home was the Casa dei Crescenzi, a medieval house beside the Tiber in Rome. It later stood in the Palazzo Gaetani and, until 1808, in the Palazzo Ruspoli, and in 1811 it was bought from a man named Vitali for Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria. Its companion, the bust known as Marius, had been in the Palazzo Barberini since 1642 at the latest, and Ludwig acquired it three years after this one.

Side by side, they turn out to have a great deal in common. The museum sees the same carving and closely related features in both, and concludes that they came from one Roman workshop around 30 BC and were conceived as a pair. The two heads turn in opposite directions. This man looks energetically to his right, and his hair is longer than his partner's, curling and full of movement.

The name Sulla, after the general who made himself dictator of Rome, is a traditional label only, and the museum says the identification has to stay open.