# Young Octavian

- By: Edmonia Lewis (born Greenbush (now Rensselaer), NY 1844-died London, England 1907)
- Date: ca. 1873
- Medium: marble
- Classification: Sculpture
- Dimensions: 16 3/4 x 8 1/4 x 6 1/4 in. (42.5 x 21.0 x 15.9 cm.)
- Culture: Italians
- Credit line: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Norman Robbins
- Museum: [Smithsonian Institution](https://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=14633)
- Rights: [CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/5b20bd49826ceb81c78309fa5bfe7c69.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Young Octavian, or Augustus, shows the adopted heir of Julius Caesar. It is a copy of a sculpture in the Vatican galleries that dates from the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. Many artists copied this piece, and it became so popular that tourists could even order reproductions from a catalogue. Edmonia Lewis’s version was considered to be one of the best available, as described by a descendant of one of her patrons: “\[It\] seemed to all of us the best reproduction of the original then offered by any artist in Rome.”