From Richter (see Bibliography): "The head was evidently intended as a portrait. The Emperor Trajan has been suggested [cf. Ross, Bibliography]. There is a certain likeness to portraits of Tiberius in the shape of the head, the forms of the eyes, and the thin-lipped mouth (cf. West, Römische Porträt-Plastik, I, figs. 133-137); but the forehead in our head is low instead of high, and the contour of the hair above it is curved instead of rectangular. The manner in which the hair grows--low at the back of the neck, and with the locks above the forehead growing in different directions--is characteristic of the Julio-Claudian house. Incisions for the iris and pupil are often found in gems of that period, where the eyeballs did not have to be painted, as they were in larger sculptures. The small size of our head would put it in that category."

M. C. Ross, in Bulletin of the Fogg Museum of Art, IX, 4 (March 1941), p. 70, fig. 1.

Handbook of the Dumbarton Oaks Collection, Harvard University (Washington, DC, 1955), no. 11.

G. Richter, Catalogue of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection (Cambridge, MA, 1956), p. 13, no. 9, and pl. III, A, B.

Cambridge, Fogg Museum, "A Selection of Ivories, Bronzes, Metalwork and Other Objects from the Dumbarton Oaks Collection," Nov. 15 - Dec. 31, 1945.

V. G. Simkhovitch Collection, New York.

Purchased from Brummer, May 1940.

Mr. and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss, Dumbarton Oaks.

Harvard University, The Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, November, 1940.