Pius portrait problems

[Diederik]

I would like to hear from you how you would describe this Pius portrait.

Frans

PS this is no quiz; I merely want an unbiassed opinion.

F

[areich]

I see your problem. That thing on the right looks like a bit of drapery, making it a bust instead of a head,
but I'd still say laureate head right.

[Mark Farrell]

Laureate bust r., drapery on far shoulder. I think the portrait looks good.  However, are you asking for input on something else specifically, such as "is it tooled?" If so, I don't see evidence of that.

Mark

[slokind]

As Mark says.  That's how it's described.  It's just a way of indicating that we are looking at the image of an emperor who had one shoulder draped, like Jupiter, e.g., rather than being a gloriously heroic nude bust (or full-length occasionally) image.  Knowing exactly where to find the illustration of what is being suggested, I went to my Trajan files.  I think this is a Rome convention, but I'm not sure.  It is one thing that I hoped might be clarified by my posting a Moesian Macrinus that features it, too. https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=36143.0.
Pat L.

[Diederik]

Apart from some 'smoothing' on both sides, I don't think anything was altered; I agree on 'bust' rather than 'head'; I too think there is (slight) drapery on the left shoulder, but I still wonder about the position/angle of the bust. What is the 'thing' at the back of the portrait; has it to do with the way the drapery is fastened?

Frans

[slokind]

As for the stuff behind the head, mixed up with the laurel ribbons, my Macrinus at Nicopolis also has that, which is why I linked to it.  It is in fact unusual to have some shown in back as well, and I thought even more so in Moesia Inf.  And yes, I read your Ant Pius as 3/4 from behind.

The convention is NOT to call these busts, but Heads with a bit of drapery on the far shoulder.  The ones that are cut off in a sort of potato-chip (British, crisp) wavy shape are called Heads.  As time passed, in large sculpture, more of the shoulders and pectorals were included.
In describing coins, it is conventional to use Bust for fully draped, or cuirassed and draped; also, as a rule (there are plenty of exceptions) these imply a full-length statue, rather than a 'library shelf' head with more or less of the shoulders.  The clothed bust is just chopped off, representationally, often terminated by the beaded border itself.
What is conventionally called a Head is what a 19th c. gentleman would call an Antique Bust (for a library shelf, or the like).  By the end of the Julio-Claudian period, the wavy, ruffled artistic termination was well established; it is decorative besides signifying an independent portrait of the head and not too much more.  In sculpture, there is the nude heroizing kind (like the Br Mus Trajan) as well as that (the draped and cuirassed kind) with the cloak swooping around so that the cut-off doesn't look so arbitrary.
It would be logical to call all the Imperial ones 'busts', since in sculpture  the nude heroizing one is the quintessential Antique Bust, as distinct from a portrait thought of as part of a portrait with a body.  BUT IT WOULD NOT BE CONVENIENT.  We'd have to limit 'head' to Republican ones.  I mean, it isn't the presence or the absence of a bit of drapery that makes the British Museum portrait of Trajan, probably posthumous (though the polish is from its being a Townley marble, I think), a portrait bust but the fact that it was designed just as we have it.  The ruffled cut-off on the coins is abstracted from the appearance of such a work seen in side or 3/4 view.
I have fallen into the habit of capitalizing Head and Bust, to somehow distinguish them from the regular English common nouns (not to imitate German usage!).
Pat L.

[Diederik]

Thank you Patricia!
You exactly gave the answer I had come to myself - apart from the distinction of head and bust, which I used to interpret as the difference between a 'head with a neck' and 'anything-that-shows-more-than-that'. So here Mark has a point, too!
Like Mark, I also find that this portrait has great quality and you, Patricia, made an allusion to a portrait directly taken from a statue.
I don't think this portrait style is very common for Pius coins and certainly not in RIC for this type.

Frans

PS I still have to try and win this coin btw

[curtislclay]

Actually, by numismatic convention, that fold of cloak or aegis on shoulder turns the portrait from a Head into a Bust.

See for example BMC IV, p. 267, the list of busts for these very bronzes of Pius dated COS IIII: 

(a) Head of Antoninus, bare, r.

(b) Head, laureate, r.

(c) Bust, laureate, r., with drapery on l. shoulder.

(d) Bust, laureate, r., with aegis on l. shoulder.

(e) Head, laureate, l.

Quite often, but not always, the fold of drapery or aegis at front is accompanied by a fold behind the neck too.  Usually that back fold simply lies against the neck, but sometimes it overlaps the neck, wrapping around it, as on the sestertius below from CoinArchives.  That may be what Frans' coin shows, though it's not very clear in the picture.

Occasionally that back fold is mentioned in descriptions, for example BMC IV, p. 40:

(b) Bust of Marcus Aurelius with drapery on shoulder, front and back, head, bare, r.

Usually, however, the descriptions ignore it!