Portrait Head of a Young Woman (130-40): Artwork and History

Portrait Head of a Young Woman (130-40) 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:

This elegant portrait is the intentional likeness of a young woman in her early twenties who had a delicate brow, high cheekbones, wide-set eyes, a bow-shaped mouth, and a prominent chin. Her long tresses are arranged in an elaborate hairstyle, fashionable at different times during the imperial period, in which the hair was parted in the center, combed in waves over the forehead, and plaited into braids that were artfully wrapped around the head like a turban. Broken off at the neck, it was once part of a larger statue.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait Head of a Young Woman
• Date: 130-40
• Artist attribution: Roman
• Place of origin: Roman Empire
• Medium: Marble
• Dimensions: 22 × 18 × 20.6 cm (8 7/8 × 7 × 8 in.)
• Type: Sculpture
• Department: Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
• Reference number: 1960.64

Collection credit

Edward E. Ayer Endowment in memory of Charles L. Hutchinson

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.