A fragmentary bronze portrait head of the emperor Augustus or a member of the Julio-Claudian family, Roman Imperial, circa early 1ST century A.D.

from a large figure, his head turned to the right, his face with aquiline nose and eyes meant for inlay.

Found in December 1880 in Rome under the foundations of the Anglican church of All Saints, at the intersection of the Via del Babuino and the Via del Gesù e Maria
Giuseppe Scalambrini, Rome, circa 1880
Roger Videau Collection (Drouot-Richelieu, Paris, Antiquités égyptiennes, grecques et romaines, June 2, 1989, no. 130, cover illus.)
Royal-Athena Galleries, New York, July 1990

Rodolfo Lanciani, "Supplementi al volume VI del Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum," Bullettino della Commissione archeologica comunale di Roma, vol. 9, 1881, p. 30, pl. 1, 3
Dorothy Kent Hill, "A Cache of Bronze Portraits of the Julio-Claudians," American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 43, 1939, p. 402, fig. 2
C. Pietrangeli, Bullettino della Commissione archeologica comunale di Roma, vol. 72, 1946-1948 (1949), p. 59
Vagn Poulsen, Claudische Prinzen: Studien zur Ikonographie des ersten römischen Kaiserhauses  (Deutsche Beiträge zur Altertumswissenschaft, vol. 14), Baden-Baden, 1960, p. 19, note 33
Hans Jucker, "Die Prinzen auf dem Augustus-relief in Ravenna," in Mélanges d'histoire et d'archéologie offerts à Paul collart, Lausanne, 1976, p. 262, note 140 B
Klaus Fittschen and Paul Zanker, Katalog der römischen Porträts in den Capitolinischen Museen und den anderen kommunalen Sammlungen der Stadt Rom, Mainz am Rhein, vol. I, 1985, p. 24, no. 20, note 1b
Minerva, vol. 1, no. 7, 1990
Dietrich Boschung, Die Bildnisse des Augustus (Das römische Herrscherbild, 1,2), Berlin, 1993, p. 196, pl. 208
Charles Brian Rose, Dynastic Commemoration and Imperial Portraiture in the Julio-Claudian Period, Cambridge and New-York, 1997, p. 115, no. 5, pl. 118
Dietrich Boschung, Gens Augusta: Untersuchungen zu Aufstellung, Wirkung und Bedeutung der Statuengruppen des julisch-claudischen Kaiserhauses (Monumenta Artis Romanae, vol. 32), Mainz am Rhein, 2002, p. 140, no. 71.4
Arachne, no. 133559

Fragmentary, lacking top and most of the back of the head, now mounted on a stand, with a greenish oxidized patina, less disfigured on the proper left side of face (smoother than on right side), the piece appears to be original to itself and not a pastiche however due to the heavy corrosion on the interior this is impossible to verify as no seams are visible.
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Several Julio-Claudian bronze portrait heads came to light together under the Anglican Church of All Saints in Rome in 1880. Roman art dealer Giuseppe Scalambrini acquired from the owner not only the present head, but also two other less well-preserved portraits, one of Gaius Caesar and one of Nero, both of which he gave to the Capitoline Museums in Rome (see Lanciani, op. cit., pl. 1,1-2, and H. Stuart Jones, A Catalogue of the Ancient Sculptures preserved in the Municipal Collections of Rome. The Sculptures of the Palazzo dei Conservatori, 1926, p. 288, nos. 7 and 8, pl. 116). Other more fragmentary imperial heads from the same deposit found their way to the Walters Art Gallery via the Massarenti Collection (see D. Kent Hill, op. cit. pp. 401-409, and Catalogue of Classical Bronze Sculpture in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, 1949, nos. 2-4, pl. 2).