Portrait of a Woman, on a modern bust
This female head, set on a modern bust, has elegant, regular features with large eyes and a small, closed mouth with well-defined corners. A crown of hair frames the face while the rest is arranged in parallel, horizontal bands and gathered in a round bun in the back. This ‘melon’ hairstyle evokes the official portraiture of Crispina, the young wife of Commodus, and in particular from when she married in 178 CE and was given the title Augusta.
The sculpture was reported for the first time in the Palazzina Borghese in 1833, when it was described as displayed with three others in the oval niches in the Portico.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
second half of the 2nd century A.D.
Classification
Medium
Dimensions
Provenance
Borghese Collection, reported in 1833 in the Portico in the Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese (C, p. 41, no. 10). Purchased by the Italian State, 1902.
Conservation and Diagnostic
- 19th century Restoration of the nose, the left ear and the back part of the neck up to the attachment
of the hair. Surface heavily reworked.
- 1991 I.C.R.
- 2008 Consorzio Capitolino di Elisabetta Zatti ed Elisabetta Caracciolo
Commentary
This female head is set on a modern bust clothed in soft drapery fastened with a series of circular buttons over the shoulders and covered with a mantle that forms a voluminous band of horizontal folds on the chest called an umbo.
The head is slightly turned to the right and the perfectly oval-shaped face has regular, elegant features, with large almond-shaped eyes, barely noted eyebrows and a small, curved mouth with full lips. The irises are described with circular incisions and the pupils, looking upward, lend the gaze a spiritual, dreamy expression. The hair is parted in the middle and arranged into a flat, raised roll the surrounds the head, almost entirely revealing the ears. The hair on the rest of the head is styled in lengthwise, striated, parallel bands, gathered in a rolled-up braid gathered into a round bun.
This hairstyle, known as the ‘Melonenfrisur’ type, links the sculpture to the official portraiture of Crispina, the young wife of Commodus, amply attested by coins. This type, dated by Wegner to when Crispina was given the title Augusta in connection with her wedding in 178 CE, is also found in a portrait head unearthed at Hadrian’s Villa and now in the Museo Nazionale Romano, one in the Torlonia Collection and another in the Louvre, all of which closely resemble the Borghese sculpture (Wegner 1939, p. 76, pl. 57; inv. 108601: Felletti Maj 1953, p. 123, no. 243; inv. 570: Fittschen 1982, p. 84, no. 3; Wegner 1980, p. 101, pl. 8,2).
In the Palazzina Borghese, the bust was mentioned for the first time in the Portico in 1833, in the Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese, when it was displayed with three others in the ‘Ovals to the sides of the entrance’ (C, p. 41, no. 10); a location confirmed in 1893 by Venturi (p. 12). The only time that it was mentioned individually was in 1957, when Calza described it generically as a ‘portrait bust of a woman’ and dated it to the second half of the second century CE (p. 15, no. 152).
Giulia Ciccarello
Bibliography
- A. Venturi, Il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Roma 1893, p. 12.
- G. Giusti, La Galleria Borghese e la Villa di Umberto Primo a Roma, Roma 1903, p. 14.
- M. Wegner, Das römische Herrscherbild: Die Herrscherbildnisse in antoninischer Zeit, Berlin 1939, pp. 74-78, in part. p. 76, tav. 57.
- B. M. Felletti Maj, Museo Nazionale Romano. I ritratti, Roma 1953, p. 123, n. 243.
- R. Calza, Catalogo del Gabinetto fotografico Nazionale, Galleria Borghese, Collezione degli oggetti antichi, Roma 1957, p. 15, n. 152.
- B. M. Felletti Maj, s.v. Crispina, Enciclopedia dell'Arte Antica, 1959.
- P. Moreno, Museo e Galleria Borghese, La collezione archeologica, Roma 1980, p. 8.
- M. Wegner, Verzeichnis der Kaiserbildnisse von Antoninus Pius bis Commodus, in “Boreas“, 3, 1980, pp. 12-116, in part. p. 101, tav. 8,2.
- P. Moreno, S. Staccioli, Le collezioni della Galleria Borghese, Milano 1981, p. 102.
- K. Fittschen, Die Bildnistypen der Faustina Minor und die Fecunditas Augustae, in “Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen“, Göttingen 1982, p. 84, n. 2, tav. 51.3.
- D. Ziegler, Frauenfrisuren der römischen Antike: Abbild und Realität, Berlin 2000, pp. 55-57, n. 28.
- P. Moreno, A. Viacava, I marmi antichi della Galleria Borghese. La collezione archeologica di Camillo e Francesco Borghese, Roma 2003, p. 82, n. 33 (con foto errata).
- Schede di catalogo 12/01008282, P. Moreno 1976; aggiornamento G. Ciccarello 2020.
