Portrait head of a «kosmetes» – Hadrian and Athens

Provenance: Athens, «Diogeneion». Height: 0.30 m. Marble: Pentelic.
Chronology: around the middle of the 3rd century AD. EAM 406

The portrait depicts a mature, bearded man. The structure of the head is heavy and the face broad and angular. The hair and the short beard are rendered in extremely low relief, worked with a fine point. It follows the contemporary trend of the portraits of the period of Trebonianus Gallus. The swollen ears testify his athletic past as a wrestler.