On the Unknown Portrait Bust ...

The head, the only ancient part, rests onto a polychrome marble modern bust. The portrait, with strong angular features, is one of the few existing sculptures in black basalt, an extremely difficult stone to carve owing to its hardness. This type of marble found its fortune in the late I century A.D., when numerous replicas of famous Greek statuary (such as the torso of the Doryphoros at the Uffizi) or portraits of famous persons were made using this stone, on account of its color that made the finished work resemble bronze, the material of the more prized sculptures. The first fundamental contribution given by the cleaning and restoring operations was an analytical mapping that exactly showed for the first time the extent of modern restorations. The superficial layers of dirt were systematically removed with tensioactives, while the tougher dirt was laser-cleaned. A detailed photographic campaign has significantly updated and enriched the archival material for this sculpture.