Bronze Portrait of Ptolemy of Mauretania in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 2007

Bronze portrait of Ptolemy of Mauretania
Roman, early Julio-Claudian, ca. 5-20 AD

On loan to the Metropolitan Museum from an anonymous donor, Accession # L.2007.16

Ptolemy of Mauretania had prestigious grandparents, for his mother, Cleopatra Selene, was the daughter of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII of Egypt. His father, Juba II of Numidia, also had close ties with the Julio-Claudian family, having been brought up in the household of Octavian (later Augustus) in Rome. In 25 BC, Augustus made Juba King of Mauretania, which stretched for nearly eight hundred miles along the coast of North Africa as far as the Atlantic Ocean. Ptolemy succeeded to the throne on his father's death in AD 23, but the kingdom was subsequently annexed and made into two Roman provinces by the emperor Claudius in AD 44. The identification of the bust is based on similarities to Ptolemy's coin portraits. He is presented here as a youthful prince, and so the bust may have been made before he became king. In addition, the portrait owes much to Roman prototypes, drawing heavily on the imagery used for the imperial princes, especially Augustus' grandson Gaius Caesar, who died in AD 4.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.