DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55337#0149
[ 7i ]
BUST OF A ROMAN WOMAN OF TRAJAN’S AGE.
(Lansdowne House.)
Marble. Height 0-75. Restored in marble : right shoulder
and breast and parts of left side of bust, also inscription plate and
base ; in plaster : nose, part of upper lip and some folds.]
A portrait of an elderly, stout, and dignified lady, with a high
arched forehead and rather prominent sagacious eyes. In Michaelis’s
text Bernoulli rightly calls attention to the peculiar course of the
brows towards the root of the nose. She wears behind a turban-
like hair-dressing and over the forehead the hair is raised high with
big curls. In this shape the sponge-like curl-dressing of the hair
appears for the first time in the age of Trajan, though we have
met with it from the Flavian period in no. 45. Many proofs can
be adduced for this. Thus the woman on the grave-relief of Claudius
Agathemerus at Oxford (fig. 41, facing p. 65)1 has this dressing,
the man the forehead-hair usual under Trajan, closely correspond-
ing to no. 51. Just as in the Lansdowne House bust, so also in a
portrait of a woman in Madrid, the shape of the bust is instructive
and points definitely to Trajan’s age.2 Moreover, a series of women’s
portraits has the big curl combined with a lower fringe of sickle-
shaped locks, which are typical of the age of Trajan.3 Finally there is
the portrait of a woman with diadem in the Capitoline Museum, which
is certainly named correctly as Domitia and represents Domitian’s wife
as old, and so as Empress dowager.4 The transition from the Flavian
1 Museum, no. 147. Cf. for this treat-
ment of the hair Steininger, Haartrachten,
p. 45, and W. Altmann, Die romischen
Grabaltdre, p. 204, fig. 161, where the man
also has the hair-dressing of Trajan’s age.
2 Arndt-Amelung, 1675-6. Wrongly
dated to the age of Domitian.
3 Stuart Jones, Museo Capitolino, pl. 36,
no. 7 (p. 140) ; Hekler, Greek and Roman
Portraits, pl. 236 b and 244 a ; Amelung,
Vat. Katal., i, pl. 12, no. 73.
4 Stuart Jones, ib., pl. 37, no. 20 (p. 147).
The same perhaps also in Petrograd, cf.
Kieseritzky, Illustr. Cat., 1901, p. 28, no. 71.
BUST OF A ROMAN WOMAN OF TRAJAN’S AGE.
(Lansdowne House.)
Marble. Height 0-75. Restored in marble : right shoulder
and breast and parts of left side of bust, also inscription plate and
base ; in plaster : nose, part of upper lip and some folds.]
A portrait of an elderly, stout, and dignified lady, with a high
arched forehead and rather prominent sagacious eyes. In Michaelis’s
text Bernoulli rightly calls attention to the peculiar course of the
brows towards the root of the nose. She wears behind a turban-
like hair-dressing and over the forehead the hair is raised high with
big curls. In this shape the sponge-like curl-dressing of the hair
appears for the first time in the age of Trajan, though we have
met with it from the Flavian period in no. 45. Many proofs can
be adduced for this. Thus the woman on the grave-relief of Claudius
Agathemerus at Oxford (fig. 41, facing p. 65)1 has this dressing,
the man the forehead-hair usual under Trajan, closely correspond-
ing to no. 51. Just as in the Lansdowne House bust, so also in a
portrait of a woman in Madrid, the shape of the bust is instructive
and points definitely to Trajan’s age.2 Moreover, a series of women’s
portraits has the big curl combined with a lower fringe of sickle-
shaped locks, which are typical of the age of Trajan.3 Finally there is
the portrait of a woman with diadem in the Capitoline Museum, which
is certainly named correctly as Domitia and represents Domitian’s wife
as old, and so as Empress dowager.4 The transition from the Flavian
1 Museum, no. 147. Cf. for this treat-
ment of the hair Steininger, Haartrachten,
p. 45, and W. Altmann, Die romischen
Grabaltdre, p. 204, fig. 161, where the man
also has the hair-dressing of Trajan’s age.
2 Arndt-Amelung, 1675-6. Wrongly
dated to the age of Domitian.
3 Stuart Jones, Museo Capitolino, pl. 36,
no. 7 (p. 140) ; Hekler, Greek and Roman
Portraits, pl. 236 b and 244 a ; Amelung,
Vat. Katal., i, pl. 12, no. 73.
4 Stuart Jones, ib., pl. 37, no. 20 (p. 147).
The same perhaps also in Petrograd, cf.
Kieseritzky, Illustr. Cat., 1901, p. 28, no. 71.