Head of a Young Woman (25–1 BCE): Art, History and Details

Head of a Young Woman (25–1 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This head of a young woman is designed after Greek art in the Archaic period (c. 600–480 BCE). She references a type of Greek statue called a kore in her heavily patterned hair, almond-shaped eyes, neutral expression, and large disk earrings, best preserved on the right ear. Her stephane or diadem crown is from the later Hellenistic period; however, with the addition of the decorative vegetal scroll it is characteristic of Roman art. All these elements together are not found in original Greek archaic artworks. This ancient combination of deliberately historic styles is called archaizing or archaistic by modern scholars.

Object facts

• Title: Head of a Young Woman
• Date: 25–1 BCE
• Culture: Italy, Roman (archaizing)
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: marble
• Dimensions: Overall: 23 x 19.5 x 18.5 cm (9 1/16 x 7 11/16 x 7 5/16 in.)
• Collection: GR - Roman
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1989.74

A detail from the museum

When Rome conquered Greece in 146 BCE, Romans developed a taste for historic Greek art.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• E. H. T. “The Year in Review: Selections 1989.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 77, no. 2, 1990, pp. 38–78.

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.