Italian, perhaps Rome, 16th century

The present bust bears some affinity with the bust of Vitellius from the series of twelve emperors conceived by the sculptor Willem Danielsz. van Tetrode in Rome in the mid 16th century. Modelled in 1559, the twelve emperors were the sculptor's first independent commission and were made to decorate a cabinet for Niccolò IV Orsini, Count of Pitigliano. The  bronze reductions represented some of the most celebrated antiquities in Rome and the busts were based on marble models by Guglielmo della Porta (c. 1515-1577) for whom Tetrode worked in the 1550s. Here, however, the deep and heavy folds in the drapery are much more pronounced than those of the Tetrode busts and may reflect the use of a marble prototype with significant undercutting of the stone.