LATE HADRIANIC PERIOD TO EARLY ANTONINE PERIOD, CIRCA MID 2ND CENTURY A.D.

This beautiful portrait depicts a woman of childbearing age. Her visage is smooth and unwrinkled, and she appears ageless but for subtle naso-labial folds and creases at the corners of her mouth. Her almond-shaped eyes have articulated heart-shaped irises and heavy upper lids, all below arching brows and a spade-shaped forehead. She has a small bow-shaped mouth with full lips above her dimpled chin. Her head is turned to her right, on a long neck. The striking details are further enhanced by the fine polish on the entire surface, typical of this period.

Her intricately stylized coiffure is in the elaborate fashion of the 2nd century, as seen in the Imperial portraits of those like the Empress Sabina and others of the Hadrianic court like Avidia Plautia, now at Yale (see no. 30 in D.E.E. Kleiner and S.B. Matheson, eds., I Claudia: Women in Ancient Rome). Her wavy hair has been center parted, visible at the peak of her forehead as well as the base of her neck, and pulled back, swept upward and twisted, held in place by coils of braids encircling the crown of the head several times. At the back of the head, the hair forks with the braids continuing on, disappearing below the crowning braids. An asymmetrical arrangement of curls fall onto each cheek before the ear, all features visible on the Yale portrait.