< PreviousCQ Cahn’s Quarterly 2/2023 10 Highlight By Detlev Kreikenbom An Augustan Portrait of a Woman In the Roman Republic, portraits of men outnumbered those of women to such an extreme extent that for the years from 500 to 50 B.C. the term portrait seems to be as- sociated almost exclusively with masculine depictions. In contrast to the numerous hon- orary and dedicatory statues of men that are documented by written sources, we have credible information on only two cases of analogous tributes to women: for Quinta Claudia, who was actively involved in the introduction of the Magna Mater cult in Rome in the 3rd century B.C., and Cornelia, the mother of the two Gracchi, who distin- guished themselves as reform politicians in the 2nd century B.C. The pedestal of a statue of the mother still exists. It is highly prob- able that it is the original base of the statue attested to by the sources, although it was restored in the Augustan period. The picture painted by written sources is in- complete, as it is restricted to representative state monuments. The extent to which im- Figs. 1-2: A PORTRAIT HEAD OF A YOUNG WOMAN. H. 25.1 cm. Marble. Roman, Early Augustan, ca. 40-30 B.C. Price on request ages of women were assigned a role in fu- nerary culture remains unclear. In any case, they were not represented among the ances- tral portraits in the homes of noble families. And there are no surviving Roman portraits of women dating from before the middle of the 1st century B.C. From this point in time onwards, the pre- served monuments present an entirely dif- ferent picture. With the transition from the Republic to imperial rule, a dramatic change can be observed. Portraits of wom- en are now regularly found on sepulchral monuments, especially in the box-shaped reliefs with portrait busts of entire families (German: Kastengrabrelief). The women are shown in their marital or extended family context, sometimes even in groups repre- senting several generations. The reliefs be- longed to citizens of lower social groups, predominantly freed slaves. However, the phenomenon itself was not class-specific. The elaborate tombs of noble families with portrait busts sculpted in the round form the counterpart to these reliefs, and may- be even served as their model. Furthermore, statues of women occasionally accompanied those of their publicly honoured husbands. In addition, women were deemed worthy of being honoured by a statue in their own right if they had rendered outstanding ser- vices to the public good through donations or endowments. With regard to the way the honour bestowed was legitimised there was no fundamental difference to the few prec- edents. The social roles of the women por- trayed and the personal qualities assigned to them within the context of the family also remained unchanged. What was new, however, was the sheer quantity of depic- tions and the esteem accorded to women that was thereby visually expressed. The proliferation of representations of women from the 2nd half of the 1st century B.C. onwards is closely connected with a legal provision of the year 35 B.C. in which Oc- tavian, the future emperor Augustus, had CQ Cahn’s Quarterly 2/2023 11 public honorary statues granted to his wife Livia and his sister Octavia. Furthermore, Livia and Octavia were awarded sweeping personal rights that included immunity and exemption from guardianship. Nonetheless, this cannot conceal the fact that the sculp- tures were also, indirectly, about family propaganda. The depictions of female members of the ruling family rapidly gave rise to portraits not only of women belonging to the top echelons of society but also of women from merely local elites. Remarkably, one third of all Roman portraits are official or private representations of women dating from the Imperial period. The head currently with the Cahn Gallery was created during those years of radical change in the 1st century B.C. (figs. 1-2). It can be assigned to this period with as much certainty as chronological dating based on formal analysis can provide. Several criteria mutually confirm each other, without run- ning the risk of circular reasoning. The eyes alone are characteristic, having narrow, sharply defined lids under angular, protrud- ing brows, which emerge from the root of the nose almost at a right angle, rise slightly to- wards either side and then curve down in an elongated arc above the outer corners of the eyes, transitioning into the gently modeled temples. The skin of the face is stretched tautly over the cheekbones in a manner characteristic of Augustan art and finds a consistent answer in the drawn-in cheeks. The hair is parted in the middle and on ei- ther side forms a wreath that is composed of strands of hair that are brushed upwards and folded inwards – a hairstyle that is at- tested to several times in the early Imperial period, for instance by a somewhat later fe- male head in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen (fig. 3). However, one stylistic difference that can be observed in the ren- dering of the hair is that the strands in this portrait are finer. Unobtrusively grouped, the impression is created that every single hair is visible. In the case of the head with the Cahn Gallery, however, several strands of hair are joined together in broader sec- tions enlivened only by some faint graph- ic structuring within. The ensuing contrast to the sculptural design of the face should not be misunderstood as a sign of inferi- or quality. Rather, the “blunt" appearance of the hair indicates that the sculpture still has a direct connection to Republican art. The hairstyles of women's heads dated to the decade of 50-40 B.C. evince related phe- nomena. Due to the progressive facial fea- tures, the head with the Cahn Gallery was probably created somewhat later, around 30 B.C. The small curls in front of the ears are also congruent with an early Augustan date (cf. fig. 4). The head presented here is noteworthy not only because of its artistic value and the remarkable period in which it was made, but also because it raises the question of whether the person portrayed was connect- ed to the family of Octavian, which already Highlight Fig. 4: A BUST OF OCTAVIA. Marble. Roman, Augus- tan, 30-0 B.C. Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano, inv. no. 121221 Photo: Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Rome. Fig. 5: A BUST OF AUGUSTUS. Marble. Roman, Au- gustan, 20 B.C.-10 A.D. Rome, Capitoline Museum, inv. no. 495. Photo: Deutsches Archäologisches Insti- tut, Rome. dominated the political scene in Rome at the time. In addition to stylistic similarities, there are physiognomic resemblances that cannot be overlooked. The facial outline is remarkably close to that of Octavia (fig. 4), and even more so to that of Octavian/ Augustus himself (fig. 5). Parallels between the portraits of the emperor and the young woman in the Cahn Gallery can be found even in the hollow cheeks, the slight hump on the bridge of the nose and the only slightly recessed top part of the nose – in details, that is, which are characteristic of a specific individual. From a systematic archaeological point of view, however, there is no basis for attrib- uting the female portrait to a family mem- ber. Iulia, the daughter of Octavian, can be ruled out from the outset, as she was barely more than ten years old at the time when the sculpture was presumably created. It is of fundamental importance that the head cannot be assigned to any known portrait type due to the hairstyle lacking the nodus above the forehead worn by Octavia and Livia. Deciding whether the head with the Cahn Gallery is an “official" portrait of an unknown type or a “private" portrait delib- erately modelled on the ruler and his family does not seem possible at present. Some unusual technical features of the sculpture that have been observed only re- cently need to be studied in depth. The re- sults will be published at a later point in time. Fig. 3: A BUST OF A WOMAN. Marble. Roman, Augus- tan-Tiberian, 10 B.C.-20 A.D. Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, inv. no. 761. Photo: Jo Selsing.Next >