The bust had most likely stood in Aschaffenburg, a town in Bavaria, in southern Germany.
In the 1840s, King Ludwig I of Bavaria had a full-size copy of a house from Pompeii built there. Pompeii was the Roman city buried by a volcano in ancient times. The king's copy was called the Pompejanum.
Deterling put Young in touch with the German authorities. A real Roman face had once stood inside a German king's Roman house.