1967.02

Marble Head of a Woman

Purchased; said to be from Syria. Preserved ht 16.5cm; max. depth 8.8cm; breadth at cheekbones 8.4cm.

Highly crystalline white marble. The piece is broken off immediately below the chin; the nose is mostly missing; the chin and lips are damaged. The head is a fragment from a relief: the smooth background can be seen clearly on either side. The rear surface has been worked back to make the piece lighter.

The head looks straight out. The hair is parted in the centre and drawn to each side in a series of deep regular waves. At the back it is plaited and wound up into a double coil on the top of the head.

The generalised handling of the face makes it unlikely that this is a portrait, but in its basic construction the hairstyle is close to that of Faustina, the wife of Antoninus Pius (d. ad 141): M. Wegner, Die Herrscherbildnisse in antoninischer Zeit (Berlin 1939) pll. 10-13. The hair at the front of ours is more deeply waved, and since this is probably a provincial piece, it may reflect the tendency seen with her daughter, the younger Faustina, towards AD 150 even though the latter had the coil of hair at the back of the head: Wegner pll. 34-37 and p. 49ff. for a detailed chronology of the hairstyle.

One may note that there is no detailing of the eyebrows and eyes as one expects at this date in more important work, but compare the funerary bust, J. Huskinson, Roman Sculpture from Cyrenaica in the British Museum (London 1975) pl. 34, 88.

On hairstyles, see also 1972.06 in this catalogue.

Folio Fine Art Ltd (London), Catalogue 41 (November 1966) no. 207 (ill.); J.R. Green with B. Rawson, Catalogue of Antiquities in the Australian National University, A.N.U. (Canberra, 1981) 94.