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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1920.44.160
Title
Head of a Woman, from a Votive Relief
Classification
Sculpture
Work Type
sculpture
Date
330-280 BCE
Period
Hellenistic period
Culture
Greek
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/292564

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Marble from the Greek mainland
Dimensions
actual: 7.6 cm (3 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Miss Elizabeth Gaskell Norton, Boston, MA and Miss Margaret Norton, Cambridge, MA (by 1920), gift; to the Fogg Museum, 1920.

Note: The Misses Norton were daughters of Charles Elliot Norton (1827-1908).

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of the Misses Norton
Accession Year
1920
Object Number
1920.44.160
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
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Descriptions

Published Catalogue Text: Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums , written 1990
67

Head of a Woman, from a Votive Relief

The head and part of the neck in relief are broken away from the background. The face and hair are very worn.

This head could be Artemis, Demeter, or a standing votary, torches in hand, in a votive relief of fourth-century B.C. type. Such a figure, albeit veiled and with a crescent above her head, appears on the right side of an Attic votive relief to Apollo or a Deme and Artemis in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Vermeule, C., 1981, p. 92, no. 62). There are a number of such reliefs in the National Museum, Athens, from sites and shrines in Athens, and all about Attica (Svoronos, 1908, p. LXXVII, no. 1461). A splendid example in the Louvre, Paris, shows a similar head on the majestic Demeter at the right end of a long rectangular relief with eight people of Attica and two elders (heroes or Demes) approaching the altar in front of the goddess (Simon, 1954-1955, p. 48, text pl. 25).

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. 85, no. 67

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