Abstract Portraits of the Roman emperors have been a focal point in the study of the ancient world. However, questions on how this medium developed over time and/or how perceptions of the emperor changed over more than four centuries of imperial rule, are constrained by the availability and accessibility of the material. This article introduces the Roman Imperial Portraits Dataset (ripd) to allow researchers to study the portraiture of Roman emperors through a more quantitative approach (Heijnen & Hekster, 2021). The dataset has systematically brought together more than 2,100 extant (i.e. published) portraits of the Roman emperors into a single dataset that can be used for further study. The article also introduces a web application with the aim to allow researchers and interested parties to work with the data(set) in an user-friendly manner.