The bronze head was discovered on August 11, 1904 near the Arch of Augustus at Susa, a town in northern Italy, not far from Turin, together with some small fragments of one or more bronze statues and a fragment of a marble inscription belonging to an honorific statue. The statue had been donated for Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (63–12 B.C.), one of Octavian's (later Augustus) closest friends and supporters, by a member of the Cottii family, but nothing suggests that the bronze head and the inscription belong together. Traditionally, the head has been identified as Agrippa, although it cannot be related to Agrippa’s normal portrait type. Nevertheless, the head clearly belonged to an impressive, full-length statue of a high-ranking Roman.
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Title:Bronze portrait of a man
Period:Early Imperial, Julio-Claudian
Date:1st half of 1st century CE
Culture:Roman
Medium:Bronze
Dimensions:H. 12 3/8 in. (31.4 cm)
Classification:Bronzes
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1914
Accession Number:14.130.2
Found in 1904 at Susa near Turin, Italy (Couvert 1904, p. 198; Ferrero 1904, p. 71.)
1904, found at Susa, near Turin, Italy; [from after 1904, with Cesare and Ercole Canessa, Paris]; until 1914, collection Arthur Sambon, Paris; acquired in 1914, purchased through Galerie Georges Petit at the Arthur Sambon Sale, Paris.
Couvert, Carlo G. 1904. "Scavi a Susa." L'Illustrazione Italiana, 31: p. 198.
Peisino, Carlo. 1904. "Annunzi bibliografici e notizie." Bollettino di Filologia Classica, 11(3):
Ferrero, Ermano. 1904. "Communicazioni." Bollettino di Filologia Classica, 11(4): p. 89.
Cantarell, Luigi. 1904. "Scoperte archeologiche in Italia e nelle provincie romane." Bullettino della Commissione archeologica Comunale di Roma, 32: p. 365–66.
Ferrero, Ermano. November 5, 1905. Gazetta del Popolo di Torino.
Couvert, Carlo G. 1908. "Nuovi scavi a Susa." Atti della Società di Archeologia e belle arti per la provincia di Torino, 7, fasc. 6: p. 406, pl. 18.
Espérandieu, Emile. 1910. Recueil général des bas-reliefs, statues et bustes de la Gaule romaine. Tome troisième, Lyonnaise.. pp. 335–36, Paris: Impr. nationale.
1914. Catalogue des Objets d'Art et de Haute Curiosité, de l'Antiquité, du Moyen Age, de la Renaissance et Autres. no. 71.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1915. Greek, Etruscan and Roman Bronzes. no. 330, pp. 144, 146–49, New York: Gilliss Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1915. "Department of Classical Art: The Accessions of 1914." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 10(2): p. 23, fig. 1.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1917. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 187, fig. 115, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Chase, George H. 1924. Greek and Roman Sculpture in American Collections. p. 174, fig. 209, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1927. Handbook of the Classical Collection. pp. 295–96, fig. 208, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Kluge, Kurt. 1927. Die Antiken Grossbronzen. Vol. II: Grossbronzen der Römischen Kaiserzeit. p. 3, pl. II, Berlin und Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter & Co.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1930. Handbook of the Classical Collection. pp. 295–96, fig. 208, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Pijoán, José and Manuel Cossío. 1932. Summa Artis Historia General del Arte: El arte griego hasta la toma de Corinto por los romanos (146 A.J.C.), Vol. 4. p. 261, fig. 344, Madrid: Espasa-Calpe.
Curtius, Ludwig. 1933. "Ikonographische Beiträge zum Porträt der Römischen Republik und der Julisch-Claudischen Familie." Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung, 48: pp. 237–43, pls. 44.1, 45.1.
Curtius, Ludwig. 1935. "Ikonographische Beiträge zum Porträt der Römischen Republik und der Julisch-Claudischen Familie." Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung, 50: pp. 262, 310 n. 1.
Richter, Gisela M. A. and Christine Alexander. 1939. Augustan Art: An Exhibition Commemorating the Bimillennium of the Birth of Augustus. p. 10, figs. 26, 28, New York: Marchbanks Press.
Poulsen, Frederik. 1939. Römische Privatporträts und Prinzenbildnisse, Vol. 2, pt. 5. p. 15, fig. 23, Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1940. "A Rearrangement of Roman Portraits." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 35(10): p. 201.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1941. Roman Portraits, Vol. 1. no. 17, p.3, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1948. Roman Portraits, 2nd edn. no. 28, p. iii, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1950. Small Sculptures in Bronze: A Picture Book. p. 20, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Johansen, Flemming S. 1970. "Portraetter af Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa I marmor og bronze." Meddelelser fra Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, 27: p. 156, fig. 26.
Johansen, Flemming S. 1971. "Ritratte Marmorei e Bronzei di Marco Vipsanio Agrippa." Analecta Romana Instituti Danici, 6: pp. 36–37 n. 89, fig. 26.
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1978. Antichnoe iskusstvo iz muzeia Metropoliten, Soedinennye Shtaty Ameriki: Katalog vystavki. no. 94, pl. 26, Moscow: Sovetskii Khudozhnik.
Pollini, John. 1981. "Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and the Ravenna Relief." Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, Roemische Abteilung, 88: pp. 131ff., pls. 40–41.
Schmaltz, Bernhard. 1986. "Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and the Ravenna Relief." Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, Roemische Abteilung, 93: p. 214 n. 9.
Bergemann, Johannes. 1988. "Die Pferde von San Marco." Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, Roemische Abteilung, 95: p. 121, pl. 52.1.
Slavazzi, Fabrizio. 1996. "Agrippa a Segusium. Su una staua loricata bronzea da Susa." ACME: Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell’Università degli Studi di Milano, 40(1): pp. 153–64, pl. 3.
Milleker, Elizabeth J. 2000. The Year One: Art of the Ancient World East and West no. 16, pp. 36, 205, New York and New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 404, pp. 350, 485, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Rozenberg, Silvia and Dr. David Mevorah. 2013. Herod the Great: The King's Final Journey p. 26, Jerusalem: Israel Museum.
Riccomini, Anna Maria. 2015. "Sul ritratto in bronzo da Susa al Metropolitan Museum (New York). Una possibile identificazione: Marco Antonio?." Segusium, LII: pp. 303–16, figs. 1, 5a, 6a.
Zanker, Paul. 2016. Roman Portraits: Sculptures in Stone and Bronze in the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. no. 40, pp. 113, 128–130, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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