Bust of a Boy with a Bulla
Roman, c.200-250 AD
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
circa 220 AD
Materials
Fine-grained Greek Marble
Measurements
460 mm (Height); 170 mm (Height)
Place of origin
Italy
Order this imageCollection
Petworth House and Park, West Sussex
NT 486347
Summary
Fine-grained Greek Marble, Bust of a Boy with a Bulla, Roman, 220 AD. A portrait bust of a child about six years of age. The round bullet head with chubby face is inclined downwards and towards the right. From the crown of the head to the forehead is a curious arrangement of ten knobs arranged in pairs on a ribbon. The latus clavus and the bulla prove this to be a portrait of a Roman boy of patrician birth.
Provenance
From the Cardinal Albani collection (mid 18th century) ?Collected by Charles, 2nd Earl of Egremont, thence by descent, until the death in 1952 of the 3rd Lord Leconfield, who had given Petworth to the National Trust in 1947, and whose nephew and heir, John Wyndham, 6th Lord Leconfield and 1st Lord Egremont (1920-72), arranged for the acceptance of the major portion of the collections at Petworth in lieu of death duties (the first ever such arrangement) in 1956 by H.M. Treasury.
Marks and inscriptions
41 (painted on front of socle)
Makers and roles
Roman, c.200-250 AD , sculptor
References
Wyndham 1915 Margaret Wyndham, Catalogue of the Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the Possession of Lord Leconfield, The Medici Society, 1915, pp.67-68