Ancient Roman statuary at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: ANTINO (Gift of Jonathan Kagan, 2010).

Speranza

Marble portrait head of Antinoos
Period: Late Hadrianic
Date: ca. A.D. 130-138
Culture: Roman
Medium: Marble
Dimensions: Height 0.35 m.
Classification: Stone Sculpture
Credit Line: Gift of Jonathan Kagan, 2010
Accession Number: 2010.453
This artwork is currently on display in Gallery 162

This fine head is almost certainly from a monumental statue of Antino.

Characteristically, the head is turned slightly to the left and gazes downward, his tousled hair hanging long in the back.

Worship of the deified Antinoos, the favorite of the Roman emperor Hadrian, flourished in the East, especially in his homeland of Bithynia. The cult spread through the initiatives of private associations and the traditional benefactions of the upper classes who wished to gain favor with the emperor. The cult also may have achieved widespread popularity since Antinoos was a man from the people with no official or imperial status who became a god.

Provenance

---

Purchased in London in the middle of 1984 from a private collector, now deceased, by Jean-Louis Domercq, Gallerie du Sycomore, Paris.

Purchased by Morris Pinto, Paris, in the Spring of 1988 from Domercq.

Sold at auction by Sotheby’s New York on June 23, 1989, lot 185.

Acquired by Mr. Jonathan Kagan from Michael Ward, New York, in 1995.
References

Sotheby's New York Antiquities Auction,
23 June 1989. New York, lot 185, illustr.

Meyer, H. 1991.
Antinoos. Die archaeologischen Denkmaler unter Einbeziehung des numismatischen und epigraphischen Materials sowie der literarischen Nachrichten. Ein Beitrag zur Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte der hadrianisch-fruhantoninischer Zeit. Munich, catalogue no. 72, pp. 93-94 illustr.