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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1970.145
Title
Head of a Lady
Classification
Sculpture
Work Type
sculpture
Date
1st century-early 2nd century CE
Places
Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World, Asia, Asia Minor
Period
Roman Imperial period, Early
Culture
Roman
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/287007

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Crystalline marble
Dimensions
actual: 21.5 cm (8 7/16 in.)

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Benjamin Rowland, Jr.
Accession Year
1970
Object Number
1970.145
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Published Catalogue Text: Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums , written 1990
127

Head of a Lady

There is extensive use of the drill in the hair, creating a honeycomb pattern. The top of the head has been broken at the back, and there is a horizontal dowel-hole back to front.

This head came perhaps from a large stele or the couch-figure of a sarcophagus of Sidamara type. A head in Istanbul from Ovabayindir Balikesir, in western Phrygia or eastern Lydia, has been dated in the Neronian to Flavian periods and gives a more elegant, curlier-headed version of how ladies like the Harvard example developed in Asia Minor, suggesting, too, that the Harvard head could be one of the last examples of the honeycomb hair style and might have been produced under Trajan (A.D. 98-117) or Hadrian (A.D. 117-138) (Inan, Rosenbaum, 1966, pp. 108-109, no. 110, pl. LXIV, figs. 3, 4; compare also, pp. 112-113, nos. 116, 117, pl. LXX, two Flavian women in Bergama, from Pergamon).

There are also many such women on couches from finds in the area of Rome, but they usually lie flat on their pillows and do not have the fullness of this head, unless they are little children, servants, or seasonal genii (Wrede, 1981a, Heft I, pp. 89-96, figs. 3-7).

Cornelius Vermeule and Amy Brauer

Publication History

  • Cornelius C. Vermeule III and Amy Brauer, Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 138, no. 127

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu