Antinous was the young, male lover of Hadrian. His premature death in A.D. 130 led to an oddly extravagant commemoration. Post-Renaissance he became one of the most collectable portrait types. This article re-examines the corpus of portraits as it is currently configured. Its primary aim is not to exclude or add pieces but to question the criteria on which inclusion and exclusion are based. This questioning cuts to the heart of issues of identification, dating, and authenticity which impact on art-historical classification more generally. It exposes how in some ways the modern Antinous is one of the discipline's making.
