Head of a Youth in the Princeton University Art Museum, August 2009

Head of a Youth
Roman, 3rd quarter of the first century BC
White marble with reddish patina

# Y1991-32

Learned Romans admired the works of Greek sculptors of the fifth and fourth centuries BC much in the same way as we today revere the "Old Masters" of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. This head, with its narrow face, rounded chin, thick eyelids, and elaborate coiffure- strands radiating from a central point on the crown and wrapped around a thick hair band- looks back to various models in the "Severe Style" of the second quarter of the fifth century BC. A similar hairstyle characters the so-called Pylades, a statue assigned to the the circle of the sculptor Pasiteles and usually dated to about 50 BC.

Text from the Princeton University Art Museum label.