With soft gaze, subtle leftward turn, delicately parted lips, and ringlets escaping over the forehead, lengthening towards the nape, this youthful head is a beguiling example of Roman idealised sculpture, confounding easy identification. The Phrygian cap’s tactile forward droop and deftly modeled ear flaps are indications of the sculptor’s skill, and the only surviving clue to the youth’s identity.

The evocative Eastern headgear was deployed for a number of exotic ephebes, notably Ganymede and Paris, both commonly shown nude apart from their caps during the Imperial period. Ganymede – Zeus’ beloved and divine cupbearer – was typically shown with the rapacious god as an eagle nearby, his expression ranging from alarm to affectionate acquiescence (for a close parallel to the present head, with eagle, see the example from Minturno and now in Zagreb, Archaeological Museum inv. no. KS 25). Paris, the famous seducer, was often shown surprisingly pubescent, with a hunting stick (pedum) and downcast pout (as in the statue in Kassel, see M. Bieber, Die antiken Skulpturen und Bronzen des Königl: Museum Fridericianum in Cassel, no. 26, pls. XXIV-XXV).

When capped heads survive without bodies, identification can be somewhat arbitrary (e.g. the head of “Ganymede” in Rome, Museo Palatino inv. no. 12486 and “Paris (?)” in Munich, Glyptothek, inv. no. Gl 263; for a discussion, see E. Bartman, “Eros’s Flame: Images of Sexy Boys in Roman Ideal Sculpture,” pp. 259-261 in E.K. Gazda, ed., The Ancient Art of Emulation: Studies in Artistic Originality and Tradition from the Present to Classical Antiquity). While previous cataloguing of the present head has understandably refrained from insisting on the youth’s identity, the sweet dreaminess of the youth’s expression and the angle of his head have an affinity with secure examples of Ganymede contemplating his divine abductor.