Roman
A Roman marble portrait bust of a woman, Imperial, circa AD 250 - 275
Marble
Height: 49.5 cm
Further images
The bust depicts a woman wearing a tunic and mantle, turned slightly to her left, her eyes with incised irises and drilled crescentic pupils, the long centrally parted hair arranged...
The bust depicts a woman wearing a tunic and mantle, turned slightly to her left, her eyes with incised irises and drilled crescentic pupils, the long centrally parted hair arranged in a melon coiffure, hanging loose behind the ears and the nape of the neck, and braided into multiple strands brought up in a broad enveloping plait to the crown of the head; the turned socle, bust, and head carved in one piece.
Provenance
Private collection, Europe, from the 18th/19th century (based on the restoration techniques)Family collection, Lyon, France, since the early 20th Century
Sotheby’s, New York, 8 December 2010, lot 57
Literature
The study of coins allows us to date this bust quite precisely, as the extremely intricate hairstyle is worn by empresses of the mid-3rd century AD. The fashion would then disseminate throughout the empire, to be adopted by women of high status and wealth who could afford slaves who were expert in hairdressing. The first empress to have such a hairstyle was Furia Sabina Tranquillina, wife of Gordian III (AD 238-244), followed by Octacilia (Philip the Arab, AD 244-249), and Salonina (Gallienus, AD 253-268). Although there is no individual or stylistic feature to help the precise identification of the woman, the fine quality marble and execution, alongside the highly detailed hair arrangement identifies the subject of this portrait as a woman of substantial means.The bust was one of two owned by a French family in the Lyon area; the pendant bust was a portrait of the empress Furia Sabina Tranquillina, wife of Gordian III (AD 238-244), which is now in the Middlebury College Museum of Art, acc. no. 2010.032. The socle on that one was added (likely in the 18th or 19th century) presumably to match the original on this example, indicating that they were kept as a pair together for more than a century, and were possibly even acquired together on the Grand Tour.
K. Fittschen, P. Zanker, Katalog der römischen Porträts in den Capitolinischen Museen und den anderen Sammlungen der Stadt Rom II: Die männlichen Privatporträts, Mainz am Rhein, 1985, pp. 109-118, nos. 163-178.
K. de Kersauson, Musée du Louvre, Catalogue des portraits romains: Tome II, De l’année de la guerre civile (68-69 après J.-C.) à la fin de l’Empire, Paris, 1996, pp. 472-479, 492-493, nos. 221-224, 232.
D.E.E. Kleiner, Roman Sculpture, New Haven, London, 1992, pp. 378-381, figs. 349-350.
S. Sande, 'Two Female Portraits from the Early Gallenic Period', in Ancient Portraits in the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1, Malibu, 1987, pp. 137-142.