Greek portrait – Round I

Sorry, but both are incorrect.  Perhaps this is one is too hard.  I'll give some hints: he lived during the late 4th/early 3rd centuries B.C. and was a writer of comedy.  His portrait was among the most, if not the most, copied works of portrait sculpture in the classical world.

oo oo, I know.  Menandros

Ok, that's right, but how did you know?  It is Menander.  

I know that when museums (even into the 20th century) would restore ancient sculpture, they would sometimes saw or chisel down already broken-off pieces (such as on noses) in order to get a flat surface upon which the prosthetic (plaster?) nose could be placed.  The break on this Menander nose looks quite smooth, so it may have been caused by modern hands.

Well then you did a good job.  Here are some other ancient Menander portraits.  He is recognizable by the high cheekbone, beady eyes that look off, slight turn of the head right, and the trademark tousled hair, which is combed forward over the forehead and usually forms four or five groupings that form a “wave” that curls down and sometimes to the right.[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/58/Portrait_head_of_the_poet_Menander_NAMA_3292_%28DerHexer%29.JPG/240px-Portrait_head_of_the_poet_Menander_NAMA_3292_%28DerHexer%29.JPG[/img]Portrait head of the poet Menander NAMA 3292 (DerHexer) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], by —DerHexer (own source), from Wikimedia Commons[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c5/Ritratto_di_menandro%2C_inizio_del_II_secolo_dc._da_originale_del_300_ac..JPG/240px-Ritratto_di_menandro%2C_inizio_del_II_secolo_dc._da_originale_del_300_ac..JPG[/img]Ritratto di menandro, inizio del II secolo dc. da originale del 300 ac. [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], by sailko, from Wikimedia CommonsMenanderPortrait [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], by Jon Corelis (Own work), from Wikimedia Commons

Donnie Baker?  😀 Let me add an extra quiz question on here since I think you all will like it.  The portrait of Menander was unusual because it depicted him as clean-shaven.  Most of the other writers/philosophers of the time were depicted with beards.  There has been some theorizing that he was depicted beardless because of his effeminate nature, or because of his following of another famous person who had his own portrait.  Can anyone guess who this other beardless portrait depicted?

He looks like somebady else too, I just can't think of whom.

You might be thinking of Virgil.  There has been talk on their similarities of appearance.

Yes, you are right - Alexander the Great.  By the time the Romans came along, the perception of effeminacy and clean-shaven skin had passed, probably because of the Alexandrian link.  By the time of the middle imperial years, beards on Roman emperors took on new significance.