This portrait depicts Antinous (about 111–130), the young lover of Emperor Hadrian (reigned 117–38). His characteristic facial features include an oval face, smooth complexion, almond-shaped eyes, and full lips, as well as his distinctive hairstyle of thick, wavy locks radiating from the crown of his head. This sculpture is a fragment from a larger whole, and for many years it was unclear what form the original, intact work had taken. Recent scholarship indicates that it once belonged to an over-life-size bust of Antinous currently in the Palazzo Altemps in Rome.