Alexandrian Terracotta Head of a Nubian (Black African) Man

Greek, Ptolemaic to Roman Egypt, Hellenistic/Romano-Egyptian period, ca. 2nd century BCE–2nd century CE 

A mold-made terracotta head of a young Nubian man in warm red-brown Nile-silt clay, broken at the neck from a once-complete standing statuette, the natural weak point where separately molded head and body were joined. The face is sensitively modeled with short, tightly curled hair rendered in stippled relief, a broad nose, full lips, and rounded cheeks—an individualized, naturalistic portrait rather than an exaggerated caricature. The piece belongs to the celebrated Alexandrian coroplastic tradition, which mass-produced figures of deities, protectors, animals, theatrical masks, and the varied ethnic types "who came to animate the streets of the Ptolemaic capital," the foremost cultural center of the Mediterranean. 

 Size 1-3/8 inches H.; 4-3/8 inches H on custom base.  

Close parallels for this head are held in major museum collections, confirming its place within the well-documented Alexandrian coroplastic tradition. The Menil Collection in Houston holds a closely comparable mold-made Head of a Black African Man from Egypt, dated broadly to 300 BCE–300 CE and likewise broken at the chin/neck, the natural weak point where separately molded head and body were joined. The British Museum preserves an Egyptian terracotta head of an African male recovered at Naukratis, dated to the 3rd–2nd century BCE, while the Museum of Classical Archaeology at Cambridge holds a related figurine of a young African man, possibly Nubian, also from Naukratis and dated to the 1st century BCE–1st century CE. The Vatican Museums similarly group such Alexandrian terracotta ethnic types among their Ptolemaic and Roman figurative terracottas.
 Ex collection Mark Reid; acquired from Time Machine Gallery.