Unknown Person at The Louvre, Paris

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The dignified and moving portrait of an elderly Roman statesman previously believed to be consul Aulus Postumius Albinus is now considered unknown. The naturalistic style of the sculpture reveals the dominant influence of Hellenism in Rome at that time. Aging of the old man depicted in this fine portrait is skillfully rendered. The artist uses chisels to set down all the marks of age, including sagging flesh, lips closing over a toothless mouth, wrinkled face and folds of the neck. Despite these signs of aging, the expressive character of the face, with the head turned sharply to the right and the mouth on the point of speaking, breathes life into a figure whose pride and vivacity inspire respect rather than pity. The large number of surviving replicas of this work has led some commentators to suggest that it is a portrait of a famous man. Comparison with heads on coins has suggested names such as Mark Antony or consul Aulus Postumius Albinus, but neither proposition is satisfactory. It is safer to leave the portrait anonymous. It is possible that it is an effigy of a Roman aristocrat, who alone enjoyed the privilege of having portraits made and possessing images of their ancestors. Roman portraits in the second century BC inherited the realistic tradition of ancient Italian art but acquired a Hellenistic coloring with the Roman conquests in the Mediterranean. As Rome gained control of the Hellenistic world, Greek works were brought back by victorious generals, and artists left conquered kingdoms for Rome, the new capital of the Mediterranean world. This phenomenon can be seen in this portrait. The pitiless realism of the toothless mouth and sagging flesh is characteristic of republican period portraits and brings to mind the custom of making death masks out of wax. However, the artist sublimates this brutality with movement of the head, mobility of the flesh and expressiveness of the face, which owe much to the pathos of the Pergamon school. The artist has invested this time-worn face with a passion that links it to Hellenistic portraiture, endowing this mortal figure with the bearing of a monarch.