Roman Republican portraiture

Roman Republican portraiture was practiced during the period of the Roman Republic (500–27 BC). Examples of portraiture, both sculpture and painting, are more abundant for the Imperial period. Republican portraiture is characterized by verism influenced by Hellenistic portraiture, and survives mainly as marble and bronze sculpture. Roman portrait busts are thought to derive in part from death masks or funerary commemorations, as elite Romans displayed ancestral images (imagines) in the atrium of their home (domus).