This life-sized statue was found on the eastern Mediterranean island of Rhodes, whose ancient Greek cities were wealthy, flourishing centers ofcommerce and culture under the Romans. With his broad face and short hair, the boy resembles young princes in the family of Augustus, the first Roman emperor, but he may have been the son of an important Roman official stationed on Rhodes or the son of a wealthy Greek. As Roman influence spread throughout the Mediterranean world, there was interchange of fashion, customs, and culture. Romans had great admiration for Greek culture; the island of Rhodes was famous for its schools of philosophy and rhetoric, and this boy even wears a Greek himation (cloak) instead of the traditional Roman toga.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Bronze statue of an aristocratic boy
Period:Augustan
Date:27 BCE–14 CE
Culture:Roman
Medium:Bronze
Dimensions:46 1/2 × 20 × 16 1/2 in., 150 lb. (118.1 × 50.8 × 41.9 cm, 68 kg) Height (w/ base): 58 in. (147.3 cm)
Classification:Bronzes
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1914
Accession Number:14.130.1
Said to be from Rhodes
[Until 1914, with Theochares, Rhodes]; acquired in 1914, purchased from Theochares through E. P. Triantaphyllos.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1915. Greek, Etruscan and Roman Bronzes. no. 333, pp. 149–52, New York: Gilliss Press.
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Richter, Gisela M. A. 1915. "A Bronze Statue in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." American Journal of Archaeology, 19(2): pp. 121–28, pls. I–VI.
Howe, Winifred E. 1916. "The Children's Bulletin: Three Days in the Life of a Roman Prince: Germanicus' First Day at School." Supplement to the Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 11(11): pp. 1–4.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1917. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 245, fig. 150, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Swift, Emerson H. 1921. "A Group of Roman Imperial Portraits at Corinth." American Journal of Archaeology, 25(2): pp. 357–58 n. 4.
Reinach, Salomon. 1924. "Deux mille trois cent quatre-vingt statues." Répertoire de la Statuaire Grecque et Romaine, Vol. 5, pt. 2, 2nd edn. no. 1, Paris: E. Leroux.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1927. Handbook of the Classical Collection. pp. 296–97, fig. 209, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1930. Handbook of the Classical Collection. pp. 296–97, fig. 209, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
West, Robert. 1933. Römische Porträt-Plastik, Vol. 1. pp. 136ff., fig. 147, pl. XXXIV, Munich: F. Bruckmann Verlag, Munich.
Curtius, Ludwig. 1935. "Ikonographische Beiträge zum Porträt der Römischen Republik und der Julisch-Claudischen Familie." Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung, 50: pp. 300ff., fig. 22.
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Richter, Gisela M. A. and Christine Alexander. 1939. Augustan Art: An Exhibition Commemorating the Bimillennium of the Birth of Augustus. p. 10, fig. 24, New York: Marchbanks Press.
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Richter, Gisela M. A. 1940. "A Rearrangement of Roman Portraits." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 35(10): p. 201.
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Hafner, German. 1954. Späthellenistische Bildnisplastik; Versuch einer landschaftlichen Gliederung. pp. 17ff., 27, pl. 4, Berlin: Gebr. Mann.
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Bieber, Margarete. 1977. Ancient Copies: Contributions to the History of Greek and Roman Art. pp. 43, 52 n. 22, 190–91, figs. 783–85, New York: New York University Press.
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Howard Kathleen. 1994. Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide: Works of Art Selected by Philippe De Montebello. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Milleker, Elizabeth J. 2000. The Year One: Art of the Ancient World East and West no. 15, pp. 35, 205, New York and New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Frielinghaus, Heide. 2002. "Busch und Schmuckaufsatz an den Helmen in Olympia." I bronzi antichi : produzione e tecnologia : atti del XV Congresso internazionale sui bronzi antichi organizzato dall'Università di Udine, sede di Gorizia, Grado-Aquilieia, 22-26 maggio 2001, Alessandra Giumlia-Mair, ed. Montagnac [France]: M. Mergoil.
Hemingway, Seán, Elizabeth J. Milleker, and R. Stone. 2002. "The Early Imperial Bronze Statue of a Boy in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Technical and Stylistic Analysis." I bronzi antichi : produzione e tecnologia : atti del XV Congresso internazionale sui bronzi antichi organizzato dall'Università di Udine, sede di Gorizia, Grado-Aquilieia, 22-26 maggio 2001, Alessandra Giumlia-Mair, ed. pp. 200–7, figs. 1–9, Montagnac [France]: M. Mergoil.
Post, Andreas. 2004. Römische Hüftmantelstatuen : Studien zur Kopistentätigkeit um die Zeitenwende. no. I 6, pp. 392–93, pl. 4d, Münster: Scriptorium.
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Daehner, Jens M. and Kenneth Lapatin. 2015. Potere e Pathos: Bronzi del Mondo Ellenistico no. 35, pp. 260–61, Firenze: Giunti.
Daehner, Jens M. and Kenneth Lapatin. 2015. Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World no. 35, pp. 260–61, Los Angeles, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum.
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Zanker, Paul. 2016. Roman Portraits: Sculptures in Stone and Bronze in the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. no. 39, pp. 113, 124–27, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Zanker, Paul, Seán Hemingway, Christopher S. Lightfoot, and Joan R. Mertens. 2019. Roman Art : A Guide through the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Collection. no. 161, pp. 319–21, New York: Scala Publishers.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2020. ART = Discovering Infinite Connections in Art History. p. 151, New York: Phaidon Press.
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The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than 30,000 works ranging in date from the Neolithic period to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312.
