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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1905.6
Title
Acrolithic Head from a Roman Cult Statue of a Goddess
Classification
Sculpture
Work Type
sculpture, head
Date
late 2nd century CE
Period
Roman Imperial period, Middle
Culture
Graeco-Roman
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/292555

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Greek island (Naxian?) marble
Dimensions
actual: 46.9 cm (18 7/16 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
The head was acquired with the "Ponsonby Head" no. 1905.7.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Edward W. Forbes
Accession Year
1905
Object Number
1905.6
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
94

Acrolithic Head from a Roman Cult Statue of a Goddess

Ancient drillwork visible. The nose, upper lip, and left ear are restored in Luna marble. The hair at the head's own right side has been reworked. The "brown coating," mentioned by Michaelis (Michaelis, 1882, pp. 484-485, no. 19) has been removed.

The subject may be Hera or Ceres, a draped Aphrodite, or a personified divinity (e.g., Concordia). The remains of ancient drillwork, channels and points, in the hair on the head's right side and around the outer part of the right ear suggest that it was carved in the Antonine or even the Severan periods of the Roman Empire. It is difficult to say whether the statue showed a seated or standing goddess personification with her cloak over the top and back of her head, but the turn of the head on the neck might suggest a statue standing in a pose of some torsion, the way large-scale, draped females in the Pergamene tradition were often represented.

A head, presumably from a standing statue, found in the Temple of Apollo at Cyrene, although turned to the subject's left rather than right, is a good indicator of how this type of cult or votive creation was circulated in the last years of the Roman Republic and the early Empire (Huskinson, 1975, pp. 67-68, no. 126, pl. 49). The much freer, early Hellenistic style of this cult image's forerunner is anticipated in a female head in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Richter, 1954, p. 91, no. 168, pl. CXX).

A head of a goddess wearing a jeweled diadem and a himation in the form of a veil over the back of her head poses the possibility that some of these heads can represent very idealized empresses, such as Hadrian's wife Sabina (died A.D. 135), although the Harvard head does not seem to have any qualities of imperial portraiture (Vermeule, C., Neuerburg, 1973, pp. 19-20, no. 37).

Cornelius Vermeule and Amy Brauer

Publication History

  • Adolf Theodor Friedrich Michaelis, Ancient Marbles in Great Britain, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, UK, 1882), pp. 484-485, no. 19
  • 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. 108, no. 94
  • [Reproduction Only], Persephone, Vol. 11, No. 1, Spring 2011, p. 52.

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