Comment on Thorvaldsen's Small Silver Head - A Ruined Tondo Portrait
[The author’s note in the text] One of the most pronounced examples is Domitian, who underwent a virtual metamorphosis on coming to power, see G. Daltrop — U. Hausmann – M. Wegner, Die Flavier, Berlin 1966, p. 30ff. His father, Vespasian, had himself represented with veristic hideousness, bald and toothless, as we see him in the portrait in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, V. Poulsen, Les portraits romains II, Copenhagen 1974, N. 3. Vespasian’s portrait proclaims him to be a bulwark for the ancient Roman virtues in contrast to the oriental despotism of his predecessor Nero.
Last updated 26.11.2015