Coin Portraying Empress Julia Mamaea (222-235): Artwork and History

Coin Portraying Empress Julia Mamaea (222-235) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Roman.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

The front (obverse) of this coin portrays the bust of Julia Mamaea, the mother of Roman Emperor Alexander Severus, facing to the right, draped, and diademed. On the back (reverse), the goddess Venus is seated, facing to the left. Coins recorded the ever-changing hairdos of the royal ladies in Rome and carried the new fashions to the far corners of the empire.

Object facts

• Title: Coin Portraying Empress Julia Mamaea
• Date: 222-235
• Artist attribution: Roman
• Place of origin: Roman Empire
• Medium: Bronze
• Dimensions: Diam.: 2.8 cm (1 1/8 in.)
• Type: Coin
• Department: Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
• Reference number: 1923.1332

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. William Nelson Pelouze

View the original

Explore the artwork in the Art Institute's collection, including its image and the museum's current catalogue details.

The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.