MID-2ND CENTURY A.D.

Details

A Roman marble portrait bust of a noblewoman
Mid-2nd Century A.D.
Gazing to her left, her almond-shaped eyes with heavy lids and fine eyebrows. Her hair dressed in an elaborate coiffure with tight curling locks of hair above her forehead with crimped waves to either side and curls escaping by her ears. The hair above is swept back in a 'turban' of multiple heavy braids to a chignon of looser tresses at the back and crown. Wearing a chiton and himation draped around her shoulders. Mounted on later pedestal base. Repaired at neck, restoration to crown of head and nose
29 in. (73.5 cm.) high including mount

Provenance

Collection of Baron von Heyl of Darmstadt; Die Kunstsammlungen Baron von Heyl, Darmstadt, II, Hugo Helbing, Munich, 30 October 1930, p. 4, lot 27, pl. XI; then acquired by the present owner's father.

Lot Essay

Faustina the Elder (d. 141 A.D.), the wife of the Emperor Antoninus Pius, created the fashionable coiffure of having wavy locks of hair drawn to the sides combined with braided hair coiled above, a style that was to become popular with infinite variations.

Cf. S. F. Schröder, Catálogo de la escultura Clásica, I, Museo del Prado, Madrid, 1993, pp. 225-7, no. 64 for a similar head; also, C. C. Vermeule, Greek and Roman Sculpture in America, University of California, 1981, pp. 324-5, no. 279; and M. B. Comstock and C. C. Vermeule, Sculpture in Stone, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1976, p. 227, no. 358.

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