LOT 0159

Roman Marble Head of a Wealthy Lady

1ST CENTURY A.D.

16 1/8 in. (24.5 kg total, 41 cm including stand).

Carved in the round with dressed hair and braided band with fanned closure above the brow; finely modelled facial detailing; mounted on a custom-made stand.

From the collection of L.V. (1950-1960), Paris, France.
Collection of Monsieur X. (1931-2017), dispersed for the benefit of the Monaco Red Cross.
Private collection, Europe.

Accompanied by a copy of French passport no.229089.

See Felletti Maj, B.M., Museo Nazionale Romano, I Ritratti, Roma, 1953; Scrinari, V. S. M., Sculture Romane di Aquileia, Roma, 1972; similar portraits can be found in Aquileia (Scrinari, 1972, cat.141 p.50 and 245 p.81); s. also Fittschen, K., Zanker, P. and Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Katalog der römischen Porträts in den Capitolinischen Museen und den anderen kommunalen Sammlungen der Stadt Rom, Mainz am Rhein, 1983; Zanker, P., Roman portraits, sculptures in stone and bronze in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2016.

The portrait is of an idealised feminine head, probably modelled on an Aphrodite type, with the hair in a bun on the nape, adorned with circles and with a tuft knotted at the top of the forehead, re-used as a portrait of a Roman lady. Many statue types were used both for portraits of women of the imperial family and for the portraits of other women, some of them based on images of goddesses.