The 13in (33cm) high bust, which is dated to the first half of the 2nd century AD, depicts the god of wine and revelry wearing an ivy leaf wreath on an elaborate chignon style hair arrangement with two corkscrew curls cascading down the neck.
The head, says the auction house, was carved for insertion into a separate clothed body and probably commissioned for a cult statue that stood in a public or private temple. Similar figures were part of Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli.
The head was acquired by Clinton Gilbert in 1923 from the Kalebdjian Frères, Parisian dealers in antiquities, and then passed down by descent.
It has an estimate of $50,000-80,000.
