3-037-330 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Portrait Bust of Emperor Antoninus Pius, A.D. 140-160. Additional Info: This over life-size bust of the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius (ruled AD 138-161) was carved from a single block of fine-grained white marble. The emperor is shown as a mature man, with a full, neatly trimmed beard and a dense mass of curly hair. His distinct facial features include the furrows across the forehead, curved and bushy eyebrows, deep-set eyes with incised irises and pupils, and the soft flesh on the cheeks with pronounced nasolabial folds. The emperor is presented wearing three pieces of garments - a tunic, visible only at the neckline; a cuirass, recognizable by the fringed leather strips covering the right shoulder and by a part of the right epomis, the armor’s shoulder strap; and finally, the paludamentum, a "general’s cloak" folded in half, draped over the left shoulder and fastened with a rosette-shaped button on the right shoulder.