The Xanten Youth

This statue owes its name to its find spot near Xanten, where in 1858 it was discovered by fishermen in the Rhine River when the water level was unusually low. The piece is very well preserved, missing only the lower part of its right arm. It depicts a boy about twelve years old, his youth evident in the soft contours of his body and his round, childlike face. [...] Set atop his head is a crown of acorns, ears of grain, grapes, poppies, pine cones, and a pomegranate, interwoven with flowers. The curling fingers of the left hand hint that the boy once held a tray, thus belonging to the genre of servant figures that accompanied an elegant Roman banquet. The tray likely would have held precious silver vessels.
Roman aristocrats used such servant statues in a wide number of ways from the first century BC onward. Some of them held lamps, earning the name lychnouchoi (lampbearers) in the scholarship. Most took the form of young boys standing at ease in the manner of late Classical statues. The Xanten Youth, by contrast, looks rather to Hellenistic art; its child’s hairstyle and strong movement recall pieces known from the Mahdia shipwreck as well as statues of the god of sleep, Hypnos. [...]
That the statue was probably made in the later first century BC is suggested not only by its style and composition, which are indebted to late Hellenistic tradition, but also by certain technical details. For instance, the legs were cast together with the torso – a technique which had all but died out by the Roman Imperial period.