The effigy of Emperor Hadrian, of which numerous copies are known, was part of an official bust. The example in the Roman National Museum has lost its shoulders, while the face has a chip on the nose, but is otherwise almost intact. Hadrian was the first Roman emperor to wear a beard, in the manner of the Greek philosophers, a definitive departure from the Augustan tradition of the shaven imperial image and from the iconography of his predecessor Trajan. The decision to wear a beard, considered by the ancients to be a sign of Hadrian's vanity, who would have wanted to hide the scars on his face, has generally been interpreted by modern scholars as a symbol of love for Greek culture.
The portrait was found in 1941 at Termini Station, on the corner of Via Principe di Piemonte (today Via Giolitti), near the arch of Santa Bibiana.