Head of the statue of a young man
Photogallery
Head of the statue of a young man
This idealised portrait presents a model in which great attention has been paid to detail, fresh and incisive, as befits an original sculptural work with a prevalent, if not exclusive use of direct techniques. It constitutes a local reworking of the portrait of Alexander the Great of Lysippus from which the idealised version of the young face is drawn, as well as the heroic “leonine” mane with high flowing locks (anastolé), which became a widely shared stylistic trait. The most specific reference would be the Alexander of the Dresden type (from the marble head previously in the Dressel collection of the Albertinum), the original of which dates from before 336 B.C. This terracotta documents the fortune of the image of Alexander according to the model of Lysippus – widely reflected in the terracotta production of central Italy, Campania and Magna Graecia, possibly as a result of the early acquisition in Italy of sculptural copies from Greece.