Gallo-Roman head, 2nd century A.D.

Gallo-Roman head, 2nd century A.D.
Limestone.
Measurements: 16 cm (height).

Roman head made in limestone representing a mature personage, which can be deduced from his serious countenance. The carver combines idealism and realism, a fact that was common in Roman statuary. The hair, the treatment of the eyes, and the strict symmetry bring us closer to that idealism that tried to represent harmony.

The Romans brought two important novelties to the world of sculpture: portraiture and historical relief, neither of which existed in the Greek world. However, they followed Greek models for a large part of their sculptural production, a base that in Rome would be combined with the Etruscan tradition. After the first contacts with the Greece of classicism through the colonies of Magna Graecia, the Romans conquered Syracuse in 212 BC, a rich and important Greek colony located in Sicily, adorned with a large number of Hellenistic works. The city was sacked and its artistic treasures taken to Rome, where the new style of these works soon replaced the Etruscan-Roman tradition that had prevailed until then. Shortly afterwards, in 133 B.C., the Empire inherited the kingdom of Pergamon, where there was an original and thriving school of Hellenistic sculpture. The huge Pergamon Altar, the "Gallus committing suicide" or the dramatic group "Laocoön and his sons" were three of the key creations of this Hellenistic school. On the other hand, after Greece was conquered in 146 B.C. most Greek artists settled in Rome, and many of them devoted themselves to making copies of Greek sculptures, very fashionable at that time in the capital of the Empire.