A Roman Marble Portrait Bust of an Aristocratic Woman

Julio-Claudian Period, Circa Mid 1st Century A.D.

Height 15 1/4 inches (38.7 cm).

Provenance:

Professor Elia Volpi (1858-1938), Florence, prior to 1910.

Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Objets d'Art et de Bel Ameublement Principalement du XVIIIe, 20 February 1983.

Published:

Illustrations du Catalogue des Précieuses Collections d'Objets d'Art Appartenant au Prof. Elie Volpi (Exhibition Catalogue), Florence, 1910, no. 53.

La Gazette de L'Hôtel Drouot, edition 5 (Gazette), Paris, 4 February 1983, p. 36.

B. Varkıvanç, Baki Öğün'e Armağan - Melanges offerts a Baki Öğün - CALBIS, Ankara, 2007, p. 97-108.

This portrait is strikingly attractive because of the sitter’s delicate yet exotic features and her elaborate couiffure. The sculpture was produced during a formative and highly sophisticated phase of Roman art, and one whose portraits of women are much less common, than those from later Imperial times. The preparation for a patch at the back of the head is seemingly ancient. Although she remains anonymous, given the sculpture's scale and scope, one can assume it portrays a person of note, who wished to be represented with the ideal and distinctive features of a Roman aristocrat. For a comparable portrait bust, see Agrippina MInor at the NY Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen (Acc. no. 755).