Bust

Bust (Fr. buste, Ital. busto, Low Lat. bustum) is the sculptural representation, in the round, of the head and shoulders of a person, usually set upon a base or pedestal; and may be made of marble, stucco, clay, metal, wood, or wax. Busts may be portrait busts or be purely ideal. Portrait busts of great excellence were made by the later Greek sculptors; and the Roman artists, especially in the imperial period, produced excellent work. The imagines or portraits of ancestors preserved by the early Romans were mere masks of wax. The Greek hermæ (see HERMES) were not strictly busts. See SCULPTURE.