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ANTINOUS MEDIUM-LENGTH HAIR
HEAD NOT WREATHED (ANTINOUS FARNESE, MARLBOROUGH ANTINOUS AND OTHERS)
Images on coins and sculpture showing Antinous with medium-length hair (above the shoulders but below the nape) greatly outnumber those of him with long hair but seem strangely under-represented in cameos. Some of the sculptures (like the Farnese Antinous) show him in full body, others have survived as busts (like the Ecouen and Townley portraits), but in all of them Antinous keeps his fringe, even if it is centre-parted occasionally. This is surely how he wore his hair most often in real life.
On coins his shoulders may be either bare or draped. The coin shown above at the top left depicts Antinous wearing a hemhem crown, a symbol of Egyptian sovereignty and of rebirth. The coin below it shows an unusually fine portrait reminiscent of the Marlborough gem (see below).
This selection of shorter-haired Antinous cameo or intaglio portraits is gleaned mainly from museum collections. The onyx or sardonyx double portrait cameo of the confronted busts of Hadrian and Antinous (Metropolitan Museum of Art) is thought to date from the mid-18th century; the blue and white example below (British Museum) is eighteenth-century moulded glass by James Tassie. It appears to be based on the Marlborough gem of Antinous shouldering a spear, a cast of which is shown alongside. The intaglio shown (Royal Collection) is also based on the Marlborough Antinous.
HEAD WREATHED: ANTINOUS AS DIONYSUS (BACCHUS)
Many of the sculptures showing Antinous with shorter hair include an ivy wreath and this again links him to a youthful shorter-haired Dionysus or Bacchus. Typically he has a pensive, slightly downward gaze.
Compare the wreathed heads of Antinous above with the 1st century A.D. head of a young Bacchus from the Getty Villa on the left. Although very similar in physical appearance and wreath, the Getty Bacchus has a quite different facial expression with open mouth and a direct, trance-like gaze.
ANTINOUS AS DIONYSUS (BACCHUS) - PALAZZO GRIMANI TYPE
One of the more overtly Bacchic images of Antinous likely to be encountered in cameos is taken from a bust presentation of him wearing an ivy wreath and animal pelt.
Marble busts of this type can be seen in Venice, Florence and at Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli, near Rome. This fine example in Venice from the Grimani collection was long believed to be a renaissance copy of the bust in Florence but is now hailed as an original and masterful Roman sculpture contemporary with Hadrian. A very similar renaissance bust in bronze (presumably a copy) by Guglielmo della Porta is located in Naples and was previously in the Farnese Collection.
From the photographs studied so far, the busts seem to differ mainly in subtle details relating to the pelt that is worn across the chest and knotted or clasped at the shoulder. The visible head and hooves indicate that this is a goatskin or perhaps a combination of skins. Although it is more typical for Dionysus/Bacchus to wear a panther skin, the goat (and hence its skin) is also closely connected with his cult as a fertility god and his devotees.
All of the busts show Antinous with medium-length hair curling just below the nape. As in so many sculptures, his head is inclined slightly downwards. The ivy crown has a stub-like projection at the front, presumably for fixing a head ornament such as a lotus bud or similar. It is interesting that the carver of the shell cameo below right has faithfully retained the stub, even though it is a structural part of the sculpture rather than a compositional element. Filippo Tignani, who cut the cameo below left, cleverly resolved this problem by turning the stub into an ivy leaf (note the rounded indentations). He also avoided any potential ambiguity over the pelt by omitting the animal's head altogether.
The cameo below left is similar in the wreath and pelt but the subject lacks any facial resemblance to Antinous and is also looking upwards in the manner of Bacchus/Dionysus. The cameo on the right seems closer to the Antinous portrayed in the busts, despite the rather basic carving.
HEAD WREATHED: ANTINOUS VERTUMNUS (VILLA ALBANI TYPE)
In this bas-relief discovered at Hadrian’s Villa and subsequently moved to the Villa Albani, Rome, Antinous has shorter-length hair and is largely bare chested. He has the same slightly brooding expression of the Braschi statue in the Vatican but this time his head is wreathed with flowers and he holds a similar garland in his hand.
The wreath is understated rather than showy, comprising smallish flowers that are mostly in bud and is tied with a fillet or ribbon with one of its long ruched ends draped on his shoulder. The bas-relief is believed to portray Antinous as Vertumnus, the personification of Spring.
As a cameo subject, the Albani bas-relief is seen far less often than the Braschi type and is invariably abbreviated to a head or bust presentation.
Cameos of the type shown above can be confidently identified as Antinous Vertumnus as in the Albani bas-relief. They include an appropriate floral wreath, the fillet draped on his shoulder and detail of the robe on the other side, as well as hair of just the right length, covering the ear.
Notable gems featuring the Villa Albani Antinous include a fine yellow sard intaglio by Nathaniel Marchant currently in the Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon. Similar gems signed ‘PICHLER’ (for Giovanni or Luigi Pichler, renowned carvers contemporary with Marchant) are in the Royal Collection, Buckingham Palace, London, and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
We also know of two cameos by Guiseppe Girometti that were clearly inspired by the Albani Antinous. In the cameo on the far left left (titled ‘Allegory of Spring’ in a Paris collection) Girometti emphasizes the floral wreath using the rich dark translucent layer of the stone while reinforcing the masculinity of the subject by giving him shorter hair. In the cameo to its right, (described as a 'portrait of Bacchus') in the British Museum, he substitutes ivy for the floral wreath. Although neither cameo is identified as Antinous, their facial features are very similar to those in Girometti's cameo depicting Antinous Braschi in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
Based on the photographic evidence found to date, the only cameos we have seen featuring the full torso as depicted in the bas-relief show signs of being moulded copies rather than genuine carvings in stone or lava. On close inspection the pinkish example on the far right exhibits an uneven, porridge-like surface and a rather strange sheen.
HEAD WREATHED: OTHER TYPES
This unusual sardonyx cameo in an enamelled mount (Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris) is believed to show Antinous as Apollo, wearing a laurel wreath.