Authenticating a Portrait of the Young Hadrian
Abstract
"Since its acquisition nearly thirty years ago, scholars have occasionally posed questions regarding the authenticity of the Museum of Art and Archaeology's portrait of the youthful emperor Hadrian. These disputes revolve around a number of copies of this portrait type that are seventeenth-century imitations of an ancient forerunner. The portrait type itself is also unusual, which has compounded suspicions regarding authenticity of the known examples. The type shows a youthful emperor wearing a neckbeard, contrary to the full beard characteristic of Hadrian's other imperial portraits. Additionally, heavy-lidded eyes and a languid turn of the head impart a dreamy artifice to the portrait, a bearing that also contrasts starkly to the virile stoicism of Hadrian's typical images. Most scholars have now concluded that this youthful portrait type is posthumous, created after Hadrian's death in 138 CE and meant to represent a renatus, or reborn, emperor, perhaps in an alternate guise; the various interpretations are further reviewed below. Iconography notwithstanding, the focus of this study will be on authenticating the portrait by the isotopic signature of its marble, a variety unlikely to have been used by seventeenth-century Italian sculptors or anyone attempting an outright forgery at some later date. The marble has been identified as one originating from Go?ktepe, a newly discovered marble site not far from the ancient Karian city of Aphrodisias in southwestern Anatolia (modern Turkey). Hadrian and some of his predecessors clearly held this city in great favor, and Hadrian seems to have had a fondness for Aphrodisias's renowned sculptors, some of whom he brought to Rome for various commissions. After the emperor's death, one or more of those same sculptors probably created the museum's portrait and at least one additional example in the same marble. The relationship between these two is discussed below."--First paragraph.
Citation
Originally published in: Muse, 2017, volume 51, pages 19-24
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