The young boy is portrayed here with full bow-shaped lips and thick, curly hair accentuated by deep drill work. K. Fittschen (op. cit.) relates this portrait to one in Florence at the Uffizi Gallery (inv. 1914.174), which has inconclusively been attributed to the young Emperor Commodus. As Jucker notes (op. cit., p. 42), the earliest confirmed sculpture of Commodus (a portrait bust in Rome at the Capitoline Museum, see fig. 141 in D.E.E. Kleiner, Roman Sculpture) dates to approximately 175 A.D., when Commodus was 14, about twice as old as the boy shown here. Earlier coin portraits of Commodus show a different arrangement of the hair in comparison to this portrait. Both Jucker and Fittschen note that the most definitive aspect of this portrait that precludes it from being attributed to Commodus is the lack of drilled pupils. Nonetheless this portrait is of high quality, as evinced by the masterful treatment of the hair, smooth surface of the skin polished to a high gloss and a captivating expression that conveys a certain serious quality of the youth. Jucker (op. cit., p. 42) contends that this portrait must come from a workshop that produced official portraits of Commodus and therefore an attribution to a member of the extended imperial family – perhaps even a young Emperor Commodus himself – cannot be entirely dismissed.
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