FLAVIAN PERIOD, LATE 1ST CENTURY A.D.

This fine portrait might have been of a deceased relative and either commissioned for a family tomb or for display in the atrium of a house; keeping images of oneself and one's distinguished ancestors was a time-honoured custom in Roman society. The highly artificial hairstyle, with the 'sponge crest', incorporating one or more hairpieces, was fashionable in the Flavian era and its popularity continued into the late Hadrianic period. It would have required constant and careful hairdressing attention. P. J. Beaumont (The Flavian Toupee Hairstyle on Imperial and Private Portraits, London 1986) writes: "It is often difficult to determine to what extent artificially added hair was used to create the often very elaborate hairstyles of the Roman female portraits. Marble toupees and whole marble wigs, as well as a reference in ancient literature (Tertullian, De Cultu Feminarum, 7), clearly show that artificial added hair was used." For close parallels, cf. E. Angelicoussis, The Holkham Collection of Classical Sculptures, Mainz, 2001, pp. 136-137, pl. 73, no. 38; D. Boschung et al., Die Antiken Skulpturen in Chatsworth, Mainz, 1997, pp. 45-50, pl. 36, no. 45; J. Feiffer and E. Southworth, The Ince Blundell Collection of Classical Sculpture, Vol. I, The Portraits, Part I, 1991, pp. 31-32, no. 2; K. Fittschen and P. Zanker, Katalog der römischen Porträts in den Capitolinischen Museen und den anderen kommunalen Sammlungen der Stadt Rom, Mainz, III, 1983, pls. 81-82, pp. 50-51, no. 64.