JULIO-CLAUDIAN PERIOD TO FLAVIAN PERIOD, CIRCA MID 1ST CENTURY A.D.

This portrait of a young woman sports a hairstyle that was popularized by Agrippina Minor, the sister of the Emperor Caligula, the niece and wife of the Emperor Claudius, and mother, from a previous marriage, of the Emperor Nero. Her hair is center-parted and arranged in deeply-drilled tight curls. A long tress in back is gathered along her neck and tied in a ribbon. Her large unarticulated eyes and sensuous lips are also characteristic of the Empress’ portraits. The style is close to a portrait of her in Seville, pp. 237ff, pl. 5 in J.M. Luzón Nogué and M.P. León Alonso, “Esculturas Romanas de Andalucia,” in Habis, 1971. Despite the resemblance to the Empress, this portrait most likely depicts a private individual from the late Julio-Claudian period or slightly later, since the deeply-drilled curls continued in popularity into the Flavian Dynasty.