Phoenix Ancient Art S.A.

This head, carved from a block of fine-grained white marble is complete. The smooth, flat surface under the neck was carved like that in ancient times: at its center, it has a square hole with remains of an iron tenon. The nose, the location of which is evenly cut, was added in plaster. The upper skull was certainly completed by elements made of other materials: the surface is pocked, displaying no details of the hair but holes retaining a small metal (iron) tenon. Despite the superficial wear of the marble, the fine and excellent quality of the modeling is still perfectly noticeable.

Using the tenon inserted in the neck, the head was attached on a statue a bit smaller than life-size. The youthful woman represented watches straight ahead; a "ring" of Venus, in very light relief, marks her cylindrical neck. Her expression is idealized and shows no wrinkles: the oval face, with the rounded chin, is framed by the sharp, regular contour of the hair. The modeling of the skin is accurate and smooth, but without any muscular details indicating a specific expression. The almond-shaped eyes are surmounted by arched brows and surrounded by thick eyelids; the arch-shaped brows accentuate the sense of melancholy conveyed by the woman's glance; the lips are full and indicated by a horizontal incision with a sinuous edge. The adornment was limited to a pair of earrings that were set in the circular holes pierced in the lobes.

The hair covers the head like a thick cap: it is divided in the center of the forehead by a central part and falls on the temples and ears. The large locks are also elegantly indicated by sinuous incisions. It is not possible to tell anymore how the upper head would have been completed: was the hair added in plaster or was the skull simply covered by a fabric veil, attached to the marble by a metal diadem held by tenons? The woman might also have worn a head covering (a helmet?) whose edge would occupy the groove carved all around the head in the marble.

Both of these attributes (diadem/crown with or without a veil or helmet) clearly indicate that this figure was not a mere mortal, but rather a mythological figure who might be identified as a deity: Hera, Demeter, or because of her young age, Persephone, Aphrodite or Artemis if the adornment is to be completed with a diadem; Athena, the goddess of war, if the head would had been protected by a helmet.

The style fixes the dating to the Classical period, between the last decades of the 5th or the early 4th century B.C., when the Greek world was shaken by the fratricidal Peloponnesian War. Among the best parallels, one should mention some images found in Attica, but mostly the large series of architectonic sculpture erected in the Peloponnese, at Argos (Heraion), at Figaleia-Bassae (Apollo Epikourios) and, a few decades later, at Epidaurus (Asklepieion): despite their small size, the style of these compositions precisely corresponds to the type of work that characterizes our example.

On contemporary Greek sculpture, see:

KALTSAS N., Sculpture in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Athens, 2002, pp. 19 ff., pp. 121 ff.

STEWART A., Greek Scuplture, An Exploration, New Haven-London, 1990, pp. 164ff.

On contemporary tectonic sculpture:

HOFKES-BRUKKER C. - MALLWITZ A., Der Bassai-Fries, Munich, 1975.

YALOURIS N., Die Skulpturen des Asklepiostempels von Epidauros, in Kyrieleis H., Archaische und klassische griechische Plastik, Mainz/Rhine, 1986, vol. 2, pp. 175-186.

STEWART A., Greek Scuplture, An Exploration, New Haven-London, 1990, fig. 413-424 (temple of Athena Nike, Athens) ; fig. 444-446 (Héraion at Argos).