Augustus

"The problem of leadership is inevitably: Who will play God?"—Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune

---

This is my 3D capture of the Skulpturhalle Basel's plaster cast of the Copenhagen Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek's 1st-century AD marble bust of a young Augustus.

Discovered in Fayum, Egypt, the bust is in the style of the iconic full-figure Prima Porta portait of Augustus, which Camille Paglia describes in Sexual Personae as an example of aesthetics-as-statecraft:

"Rome took the eroticism and dreamy obliqueness out of Greek iconic sculpture. The great Prima Porta statue of Augustus, for example, is kouros turned suave, sober diplomat. Law and custom became sacred ends in themselves. The Roman persona was a public construction: it had severity, weight, density."

Pro tip: gravitas or no, don't eat the figs.

—Cosmo Wenman
@CosmoWenman
cosmowenman.com
[email protected]

---

I captured this work as part of my project, "Through A Scanner, Skulpturhalle." You can see the rest of the results at thingiverse.com/thing:83781

---

Kopf des Augustus, Typus der Statue von Primaporta
Skulpturhalle Basel accession number 753

Kopf des Augustus, Typus der Statue von Primaporta. Aus dem Fayum. Marmor. Kopenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek Katalog 610.
Ergänzt: Nasenspitze.

Plaster cast molded from the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek's Buste af Augustus som ung, accession number FKM/0/23.

The figure's right nostril is a 19th-century repair.

Photographed with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II and Sigma EX 50mm lens, September, 2013.

Processed with ReCap Photo.

The low-res version was cleanly decimated with Project Memento

Edited for printing with Blender.

551mm tall

1.2 million triangles

---

My tips for using either ReCap or 123D Catch are here: cosmowenman.wordpress.com/2014/04/27/using-recap-or-123d/

---

Thanks to the Skulpturhalle Basel museum, and thanks to Autodesk’s Reality Capture division, who sponsored this project, Through A Scanner, Skulpturhalle.

---