Vatican Museums

An idealised male face, larger than life, of high pictorial quality and powerfully expressive. Facing slightly to the left, the face has large, elongated brown eyes, with an emphatic eyebrow line that dominates the face, conferring an energetic character. The original colour of the work has been transformed by etching to tones that certainly do not correspond to those it would have in ancient times: the curly hair and beard are dark brown in order to stand out against the pale colour of his complexion, and the crimson taenia (a flap of which is just visible flap at the nape of the neck) was intended to be visible among the hair and on the forehead.
This fragment was discovered in 1802 in Ostia, located in a large quadrangular space of uncertain function and decorated with other male and female figures of similar size.