Statue of a Boy

Description This is a masterful example of early Roman bronze statuary. The proportions of the young boy in motion are not entirely in harmony, indicating that it was made by the process of "piece-mold" casting. In this technique, artists joined different body parts together in varying combinations, according to the desires of the patron. Similar bronze figures, carrying torches, have been excavated from Roman villas around the Mediterranean and may have functioned as decorative lamp-holders or garden statuary.

Conservation

Date	Description	Narrative
12/31/1969	Examination	condition
9/03/1975	Treatment	cleaned
9/22/1994	Loan Consideration	examined for loan
2/12/1996	Treatment	cleaned; coated

Exhibitions

• Fire of Hephaistos: Large Classical Bronzes from North American Collections. Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge; Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo; Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa. 1996.

Provenance Marchese Aniello Palmieri, Naples, [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Dikran Kelekian, Paris and New York, [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1924, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

Credit Acquired by Henry Walters, 1924