Biographic data

161 - 192
Emperor from 180 to 192

Date de création

End of AD 180

Type

Type III, or of the "Vatican, Busti 368" type

Material

Chorodaki marble, Paros-2 field

Dimensions

H. 44 x l. 39 x P. 235 (cm)

Inventory number

Ra 118

Photo credits

Daniel Martin

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Until now, there had been some doubt as to the origin of this portrait. However, the discovery of a document signed by the mayor of Martres-Tolosane, J. de Roquemaurel, dated 19 September 1826, has resolved this uncertainty. This document, entitled ‘État des monumens Antiques existans chez le vieux Gabriel Saboulard, de Martres, et dont l’acquisition a été convenu (sic) avec la direction du Musée de Toulouse’ (Gorsse archival fonds, Saint-Gaudens, Comminges branch of the Haute-Garonne Departmental Archives, 92 J 1 – 92 J 744), provides an inventory of the works then in the owner’s possession. Among the twenty-two sculptures and fragments discovered by chance by Gabriel Saboulard on land situated on the left bank of the Garonne, several elements now make it possible to identify the effigy of Commodus with the ‘youthful head of a man measuring seventeen inches (43.18 cm) in height’. The old description states that « the bust once existed in its entirety ; but the lower part has been broken ; only the section attached to the shoulders remains ; a square hole was once cut on each side of the head behind the ears ». Nothing in this description now seems to preclude this identification.

Pascal Capus

The sinister Emperor Commodus, son of Marcus Aurelius and Faustina the Younger, was to be the last representative of the Antonine dynasty. He was born in the family villa, in Lanuvium in the Alban Hills, south of Rome. As the grandson of Antoninus Pius, he spent his childhood at court, and was involved in the workings of the Empire at his father’s behest by the age of sixteen. The twelve and a half-year reign of this emperor who was fascinated by gladiators resulted in a number of iconographic types, eight or nine in fact: three throughout his childhood and five or six throughout adulthood.

Type III, to which the Toulouse bust belongs, was created when the prince became the sole emperor following the death of his father in 180. It is therefore generally dated to the last months of the year. This portrait is the first to show the emperor wearing a full beard that covers his cheeks and chin. Commodus was 19 years old at the time, and therefore an adult. There are currently ten such replicas, now kept in the Sala dei Busti at the Vatican (368, inv. 617, first issue, or « Leitstück », because of its quality and state of conservation), in the Loggia Scoperta, also at the Vatican (25 [16]), in Copenhagen (Glyptothek Ny Carlsberg 715, inv. 1901), Liverpool (Ince Blundell Collection 438), Malibu (J. Paul Getty Museum, inv. 92.SA48, formerly at Castle Howard), Mantua (Palazzo Ducale, inv. 6730), which is the closest example to the one in Toulouse in many respects, Naples (Museo nazionale), Paris (Louvre MA 1127), and Rome (Musée des Thermes 699, inv. 124489).

The work at the Musée Saint-Raymond is characterised by the lack of definition of hair and face, a strange blur that gives the impression of an unfinished portrait. Behind the ears, two areas show where parts that were certainly broken when the sculptor attempted to further detail the pavilion of the ear or nape of the neck were once reattached with glue or mortises.

According to J.-C. Balty 2012, Les portraits romains, 1 : Le siècle des Antonins, 1.2 (Sculptures antiques de Chiragan (Martres-Tolosane), Toulouse, p. 249-257.