English: Boncompagni Ludovisi Collection.

Grey granite.

The bust dates to the second half of the 19th Century BC and belonged to a huge statue of Amenemhet III, sixth pharaoh of the 12th Egyptian dynasty (circa 1850-1800 BC). The features of the face are typical of many other portraits of the same king. In particular, the statue is very similar to one in the Archaeological Museum in Cairo, where the figure is standing, carrying a tray full of fish and tilting forward in the same way.

This rare iconography can also be found in a small late-Roman statue that was clearly inspired by this iconographic type, considered one of the most ancient to be imported from Egypt into the Roman Empire. In Rome the original statue was placed first in the Temple of Isis and Serapis in the Campus Martius and later in the Pantheon. It was still in the Pantheon in the 16th Century when Pirro Ligorio drew it and described it as "already in pieces", The statue appeared in the inventory of the Boncompagni Ludovisi Collection for the first time in 1641.