Details

LOT 0130

Three Times Life-Size Roman Head of the Goddess Diana

1ST-2ND CENTURY A.D.

28 3/8 in (99.5 kg total, 72 cm high including stand).

The goddess (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, an architectural element that was placed for the support of the sima of a building of great size; mounted on a custom-made display stand.

Provenance

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.

Literature

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.

Footnotes

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 into a T-shaped socket. The back of the head, cut perpendicularly, proves that the head was intended for architectural use, and not to be viewed in the round. This piece may have been intended as the head of a caryatid (a sculpture serving as a pilaster) or an architectural stone corbel (an architectural element placed to support the sima of a significant building).