A Marble Funerary Portrait Bust of a Deified Youth or Prince, Roman Imperial, circa Late 1st Century A.D.

the bust carried aloft by an eagle with wings outstretched, a chlamys fastened on and falling from the left shoulder, his head turned to his left, his short hair arranged in wavy curls in front with a slight part over the forehead, and spiral curls in back; the head and top of the wings of the eagle restored; mounted on an 18th-century marble socle and plinth.

European private collection, mid to late 18th century, probably Charles Lennox (1735-1806), 3rd Duke of Richmond, London and Goodwood
Christie's, London, May 16th, 1972, no. 240, illus.
Drouot, Paris, Delorme & Collin du Bocage, Tableaux, mobilier, objets d'art, 2010, no. 226, illus.

Phoenix Ancient Art, Geneva and New York, 2012 - no. 1, no. 12, illus.

Except eagle, surface repolished and somewhat worn, particularly top of the head. Scattered chips, abrasions, and minor losses, including a shallow chip at the philtrum, chips to the top rim of proper left ear, top and back of rim of proper right ear, and 1-inch long triangular shallow chip on top of proper left shoulder. Stress crack running vertically through the proper left wing of the eagle, through drapery, and through cheek. Wedge of marble on reverse of bust restored (contemporary with socle). Head and tips of eagle's wings restored.
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The question of the identity of the sitter rests in part on the figure of the eagle and the meaning it carries. Only one other Roman portrait bust in the round is known with a similar feature: a bust of a man wearing a tunic and chlamys in the Prado Museum (S. F. Schröder, Katalog der antiken Skulpturen des Museo del Prado in Madrid, vol. 1, Mainz am Rhein, 1993, no. 61). The eagle stands against the plinth with wings open but not outstretched. The portrait head, which does not belong, is that of a mature man of the Antonine era. It is likely that the missing original head was that of an emperor (A. Blanco, Museo del Prado: Catalogo de la Escultura, I (Esculturas Clasicas), Madrid, 1957, p. 104, no. 185).

The eagle in full flight under the present bust occasionally appears in antiquity under busts of deities, especially those of Serapis (W. Hornbostel, Sarapis, Leiden, 1973, pp. 223ff., figs. 183, 188, and 189). In Roman art, actual individuals carried aloft by eagles are usually emperors undergoing apotheosis or deification upon their death (see the central panel on the vault of the Arch of Titus: D.E.E. Kleiner, Roman Sculpture, New Haven, 1992, fig. 157; http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/marbilderbestand/901088). Unlike the usual acanthus calyx carved under many funerary busts, the eagle here is not a mere sign of departure from the world of the living; it signals that the sitter has reached a status higher than human and has been received among the gods (see H. Jucker, Das Bildnis im Blätterkelch, Olten, Lausanne, and Freiburg, 1961, pp. 138-139).

There is no other known example of a portrait bust in the round showing a private individual deified in this way (see Wrede, Consecratio in formam deorum, Mainz am Rhein, 1981). It is possible, therefore, that the boy depicted here was a member of the Imperial family who had met with an untimely death, possibly the son of Domitian, who was shown deified on the emperor's coinage as a young boy on a globe with arms outstretched and surrounded by seven stars (H. Matttingly, Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, vol. II, London, 1930, nos. 62-63, pl. 61, and C.H.V. Sutherland, Münzen der Romer, Munich and Fribourg, 1974, figs. 345-347).

The present bust was once paired with another bust of a boy (fig. 2) probably acquired in Rome by Charles Lennox, Duke of Richmond in the mid 18th century, and now at his former country seat of Goodwood in Sussex (Arachne, no. 7025; http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/objekt/7025). The Goodwood bust was designed as the mirror image of the present one. Set on an identical socle and plinth, it is composed of an ancient portrait head of a boy turned to his right and set on 18th-century shoulders ornamented with a chlamys draped and fastened in a similar way to that of the present bust, but falling from the proper right shoulder instead of the left. An eagle with wings extended and head facing to its right rather than left decorates the bottom part of the bust. The Goodwood example is the same height in total and in part as the present bust: 15 inches overall, including the 3 1/8 in. socle and plinth.

Yet another bust of a boy (fig. 1), one inch higher overall than the other two and also at Goodwood, is mounted on the same type of socle and plinth. The shoulders (18th century?) are entirely draped and the ancient head faces almost straight ahead (Arachne, no. 7026; http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/objekt/7026), suggesting that the taller bust was meant to be displayed between the two antithetical, eagle-borne busts. Groups of three busts of boys in a pyramidal arrangement were not uncommon in the 17th and 18th century, as shown in the loggia of the Palazzo Lancellotti in Rome (M. Barbanera and A. Freccero, eds., Collezione di antichità di Palazzo Lancellotti ai Coronari, Rome, 2008, p. 51), and on the mantelpiece of Robert Adam's great Ante-room at Syon House (F. Poulsen, Greek and Roman Portraits in English Country Houses, 1923, nos. 30 and 109; http://www.syonpark.co.uk/tour_ante-room.asp).

When and in whose 18th-century Roman restorer's workshop the group of three busts was assembled, and when the present one came to be separated from its companions remains unknown. Presumably, the 3rd Duke of Richmond once owned the complete set, which could have been exhibited at first as part of a small display of originals in the gallery of casts which he had installed at his London house (see J. Kenworthy-Browne, "The Duke of Richmond's Gallery in Whitelhall," British Art Journal, 2009). The present bust does not appear in a 1905 photograph of the Entrance Hall at Goodwood, which shows the two other busts standing at opposite ends of the mantelpiece, together with unrelated marble busts and heads and flanking an array of European bronze figures (Country Life, 1905, p. 200).