Portrait of a Young Woman, on a modern bust
This head portrays a young woman with full, elastic features, large eyes and a small, closed mouth well-defined on the sides. The hair is parted in the middle and arranged in two flat bands that form a crown that frames the face. A ribbon holds the hair in the back of the head, which is adorned with a veil that rests on the figure’s shoulders.
The portrait seems to recall, with some variants, the imperial portraiture of Lucilla, the young wife of Lucius Verus. The characteristics of the hairstyle are found in coins minted in 164 CE, the year of the wedding, and suggest a date for the sculpture in the second half of the second century CE.
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 and the left hem of the mantle. Plaster additions to the hair on the forehead
- 1991 I.C.R.
- 2008 Consorzio Capitolino di Elisabetta Zatti ed Elisabetta Caracciolo
Commentary
This sculpture portrays a young woman with full, regular features. Her head is slightly turned to the left and her face narrows towards the chin. Beneath the barely indicated eyebrows, the figure’s large eyes are emphasised by swollen eyelids and incised irises. She is looking upward with a dreamy, serene expression. Her nose is small, and the corners of her full, closed mouth are carved with triangles. The figure’s hair is parted in the middle and arranged in two bands, with a flat crown of hair held by a ribbon framing the forehead and revealing the ears. The hair is defined by light, continuous incisions and forms a compact mass gathered in the back and adorned with a veil that rests on the shoulders. The portrait is set on a modern bust clothed in drapery that falls in rigid, vertical folds to form a V shape across the chest. The tunic is held on the shoulders with a series of buttons and topped with a mantle that is wrapped around the torso.
The physiognomic features and hairstyle seem to evoke the official portraiture of Lucilla, the young wife of Lucius Verus, and in particular the first coin type, identified by Wegner and uniquely characterised by a flat roll of smooth, elevated hair framing the forehead, which the scholar dated to the wedding in 164 CE (1939, p. 76).
The figure’s features, which still have an air of adolescence, share typological similarities with a portrait in the Dresden Museum (inv. 388: Wegner 1939, p. 77, pl. 47).
In the Palazzina Borghese, the bust is mentioned for the first time in the Portico in 1833, in the Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese, displayed with three others in the ‘Ovals to the sides of the entrance’ (C, p. 41, no. 10); a location confirmed in 1903 by Giusti (p. 15). 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. 150).
Giulia Ciccarello
Bibliography
- 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, tav. 47.
- R. Calza, Catalogo del Gabinetto fotografico Nazionale, Galleria Borghese, Collezione degli oggetti antichi, Roma 1957, p. 15, n. 150.
- B. M. Felletti Maj, s.v. Lucilla, Enciclopedia dell'Arte Antica, 1961.
- 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. 71.
- K. Fittschen, Die Bildnistypen der Faustina Minor und die Fecunditas Augustae, in “Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen“, Göttingen 1982, p. 77, nota 42a.
- P. Moreno, A. Viacava, I marmi antichi della Galleria Borghese. La collezione archeologica di Camillo e Francesco Borghese, Roma 2003, p. 89, n. 43.
- Schede di catalogo 12/01008280, P. Moreno 1976; aggiornamento G. Ciccarello 2020.
