This is a variation of Hermes Propylaios, the herm which according to Pausanias stood in the south wing of the Propylaia. The original work is attributed to the sculptor Alcamenes, a pupil and collaborator of Pheidias, who created it around 430 BC.

This variation with the heavy eyelids, the stylised square-shaped beard, the small beaded curls that frame the forehead and the longer ones cascading over the figure's chest, belongs to the so-called Pergamon group. It therefore continues the tradition according to which Hermes' head has archaistic stylistic features, a type of representation developed during the last decades of the 5th cent. BC.