LOT 0104

Colossal Roman Head of Diana

1ST-2ND CENTURY A.D.

28 3/8 in. (72 cm high including stand).

A colossal architectural limestone head of the goddess Diana (Greek Artemis) with elegant features, sensual lips and deep eyes; detailed treatment of the hairstyle in transverse braids across the brow, laurel wreath with two rows of leaves resting above the forehead; mounted on a custom-made display stand.

Ex private Belgian collection.
with Madame Andree Mace collection.
English private collection.

Accompanied by an academic report by Prof. Neritan Ceka.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate no.11625-199748.

See Bartman, E., Hair and the Artifice of Roman Female Adornment in American Journal of Archaeology Vol. 105, No. 1 (Jan 2001), pp.1-25, for discussion of Roman hairstyling in its social context; Fischer-Hansen, T. & Poulsen, B. (eds.), From Artemis to Diana: the goddess of man and beast. Collegium Hyperboreum and Museum Tusculanum Press, Copenhagen, 2009.

The upper part of the head, cut horizontally, creates a semi-circular surface, on which the rest of the hair, or an architectonic capital, may have been mounted. A T-shaped indentation on that surface served to secure that attachment. The back of the head, cut perpendicularly, proves that the head was made to repose on an architectural surface. The fragmentary preservation of the neck does not allow a clear determination, whether we are dealing with the head of a caryatid, i.e. the head of a sculpture in the function of a pilaster, or whether the colossal head was an architectural stone corbel, i.e. an architectural element that was placed for the support of the sima of a building of great size.