Head of a Roman Man (the "Brutus Rondanini")

Two dates are offered for this head, about 15 years apart. The museum places it around 40 BC, in the last years of the Republic. The German Archaeological Institute's database, citing the archaeologist Paul Zanker, puts it early in the reign of Augustus, between 30 and 20 BC. Those were the years in which Roman portraits changed. The unsparing record of old age that Republican nobles had favoured gave way to calmer, smoother faces.

This man sits right at that turn. He is middle-aged, and the signs of age are there, a furrowed forehead, crow's feet, deep folds from the nose to the corners of the mouth. The museum notes that they are already toned down. His short hair is combed forward onto the brow, and the nose is a later restoration.

The head was bought in 1811 for Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria from the Palazzo Rondanini in Rome. Its old name, Brutus Rondanini, joins that palace to a famous Roman family name. The museum calls it the head of a man.