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Lot Essay
The flat, oval stone shows the profile head of a young woman, with an elaborate hairstyle with a long plaited section looping down from the centre of her forehead, covering her ears and then pinned up at the crown. These hairstyles are typical of the 3rd Century A.D. For various marble portraits with similar "helmfrisur" see nos 33, 34, and 37, in F. Johansen, Roman Portraits III, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, 1995.
The hairstyle was fashionable with Julia Domna and other ladies of the Severan dynasty as can be seen on coinage of the time. For an intaglio portrait of Julia Domna cf. A. Furtwängler, Die Antiken Gemmen, Berlin and Leipzig, 1900, pl. XLVIII, no. 13. The lyre before her would suggest she is in the guise of a muse. For a bust of a muse with lyre in front cf. U. Pannuti, La Collezione Glittica, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Vol. II, Rome, 1994, p. 267, no. 229.
The hairstyle was fashionable with Julia Domna and other ladies of the Severan dynasty as can be seen on coinage of the time. For an intaglio portrait of Julia Domna cf. A. Furtwängler, Die Antiken Gemmen, Berlin and Leipzig, 1900, pl. XLVIII, no. 13. The lyre before her would suggest she is in the guise of a muse. For a bust of a muse with lyre in front cf. U. Pannuti, La Collezione Glittica, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Vol. II, Rome, 1994, p. 267, no. 229.