Balance Weight formed as the Bust of an Empress (27 BCE–14 CE): Art, History and Details

Balance Weight formed as the Bust of an Empress (27 BCE–14 CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Among the most striking Byzantine weights to have survived are the imperial weights issued in the late 4th and 5th centuries. Typically they depict the same royal figures seen on coins to promote the legitimacy and stability of the state and to guarantee their validity as "honest weights." Used on balance scales, the weights were sometimes filled with lead to make them heavier.

Object facts

• Title: Balance Weight formed as the Bust of an Empress
• Date: 27 BCE–14 CE
• Culture: Roman, Augustan period
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: bronze
• Dimensions: Overall: 10.1 x 5.4 x 5.6 cm (4 x 2 1/8 x 2 3/16 in.)
• Collection: GR - Roman
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1967.28

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• “Year in Review.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 54, no. 10 (December 1967): 302–346.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.