FEMALE HEAD
Roman Culture
FEMALE HEAD
Marble.
Height: 24 cm. Average width: 15.5 cm. Depth: 18 cm.
Roman period. 1st-2nd century A.D.
Origin
Municipal boundaries of Jerez de la Frontera. Cádiz.
Description
This beautiful, excellent quality head depicts a young woman with elegant features and a suggestive expression. She has a complicated hairstyle of plaits gathered into a bun at the neck. It is precisely this hairstyle - which some experts date back to the early 2nd century A.D.- that seems to indicate a portrait, and not a representation of a divinity. It would be part of one of the dominant trends in Roman portraiture, in which a person's features are idealised into the Hellenistic model. If it is a divine image, it could be Diana, goddess of the hunt, nature and the moon.
Bibliography
- García y Bellido, A.: Esculturas romanas de España y Portugal. Madrid 1949. T. I pp. 38-39 y t. II print 26.
