Medallion with the Bust of a Young Man

The medallion, or tondo, has a raised undecorated border. The projecting figure of a young man wears a fillet around his head and his curly hair extends down the nape of his neck. He has incised eyes and slightly parted lips. A cloak is draped over his left shoulder and fastened by a circular brooch on the right, leaving his right shoulder and torso partially exposed. His right eyebrow and cheek are damaged and the nose is partially missing.

The figure has previously been identified as a young portrait of the Roman emperor Caracalla, but it most likely dates to the fourth century A.D., and depicts a hero or divinity. Circular framed busts, today often called “tondos” or “medallion portraits,” were known in antiquity as imagines clipeatae (Latin for “shield images” or “shield portraits”). The circular frame is the rim of a rounded shield, a clipeus, and these life-size portraits were mounted high on the walls of civic buildings, private homes, and tombs. Examples have been found across the Roman Empire, from France to western Turkey, and they are also depicted in wall-paintings.