Published Catalogue Text: Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums , written 1990

139



Head of Lucius Verus



The head is from a statue or bust slightly smaller than lifesize. Much of the nose is restored .There are slight damages to the upper lip, the hair, and the beard. The slightly incised pupils gaze straight ahead. Hair and beard are carved out with gouges, and there are traces of the drill, especially in the latter.



Despite a relatively short reign as co-emperor with Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 161-169), Lucius Verus was a popular subject of portraiture from childhood (as son of Aelius Verus) to beyond his death (as he was deified). This head, simple and almost summary in treatment, appears to depend on models made in Greece about A.D. 161-163.The surviving Athenian versions have more drillwork and, in one instance, a fuller beard, but this may indicate a later recension. As Lucius Verus advanced in years, his hair was arranged in a larger mass of puffy curls, and his beard grew longer.



If the Sicilian provenance for the Harvard head is correct, the portrait was probably carved in a workshop on an island such as Naxos or near the Piraeus and imported into Sicily.



A battered marble bust of Lucius Verus—a masterpiece from a luxurious Roman house at Patras—was undoubtedly carved in an Attic or Cycladic workshop and gives the point of aesthetic departure from the Greek models for the head at Harvard. Hair and beard are arranged in identical fashion, manifesting more detail and the characteristic drillwork (Catling, 1974, pp. 17-18, fig. 28).



Cornelius Vermeule and Amy Brauer