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Discussion

Portrait head of Empress in Lateran-Louvre ('Ariadne-Amalasuntha') type. From Rome? Late fifth to early sixth century.

DESCRIPTION (Object):
Head. H: 25,7; W: 22,8; D: 23 cm. White Marble

The nose and a small area under the chin are restored; there are scratches on chin, numerous damages to pearls of crown and upper front of bonnet, and other lesser abrasions. Notwithstanding this the sculpture otherwise shows fine surface quality.

PROVENANCE/LOCATION:
Allegedly found in Rome, in 1911 the marble head came to the Louvre in Paris as part of the bequest of Isaac de Camondo.

DESCRIPTION (Subject):
The portrait is of a mature woman, full-faced and plump with drilled out irises fixed in a frontal stare. The face is carefully worked around the features, with delicate nuances shaping the marble beneath the lower lip and the corner of the mouth. A snood, ridged on the sides and bound by a crown composed of double rows of pearls (horizontal diadem, lateral and longitudinal hoop across top), covers the woman’s hair and all but lobes of ears.

This kind of headdress, whose rendering varies in details, makes its appearance in the Theodosian period, but the covering became less diaphanous at the end of the 5th century A.D. The stiff bonnet used here is part of the official coiffure with the empress Ariadne (d. 513/515), the probable subject of this portrait. This identification is strengthened by a number of ivory carvings on consular diptychs showing portraits in medallion on a very small scale of this empress. The attribution to Ariadne seems plausible even for two other marble head from Rome, now in the Lateran Museum (LSA-755) and the Palazzo dei Conservatori (LSA-756): these works share the same round face and headdress of our head. All these works are also close to two male portraits with the same spherical heads and drilled eyes in Copenhagen (Ny Carlsbeg Glyptotek) (LSA-593) and in Rome (Museo dell’Alto Medioevo, found on the Palatine) (LSA-1079).

Since all three of the heads posited as Ariadne have been found in Rome, it has been often assumed that they were of Roman manufacture, and their subject was identified as the Ostrogothic queens Amalasuntha and Matasuntha. However, the lack of evidence for high-quality marble sculpture in Rome around A.D. 500 makes this difficult to sustain. It is seems more plausible that the model for this portrait-type was created in Constantinople. The remarkable number of extant portraits of Ariadne can be explained by her position as the sole heiress of the imperial office, which she conferred on her consorts, Zeno and Anastasius.

DATE
The headdress, style, and possible identification with the empress Ariadne indicate a late 5th – early 6th century date.

Yuri Marano

Main Reference

Schade, K., Frauen in der Spätantike--Status und Repräsentation, Mainz 2003, 223-4, no. I 62, pl. 63.2

Delbrueck, R., 'Porträts byzantinischer Kaiserinnen', Mitteilungen des Kaiserlich Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Mitteilungen 28 , Berlin 1913, 319-24

MacClanan, A., Representations of Early Byzantine Empresses. Image and Empire, New York 2002, 83-4

Discussion References

Fuchs, S., Kunst der Ostgotenzeit, Berlin 1943, 127-36

Sande, S., 'Zur Porträtplastik des 6. Jhds n. Chr.,' , Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia, 6 (1975), 65-166., 67-81

Stichel, R. H. W., Die römische Kaiserstatue am Ende der Antike, Roma 1982, 59

Stutzinger, D. (ed.), Spätantike und frühes Christentum. Ausstellung im Liebieghaus, Museum alter Plastik, Frankfurt am Main. 16. Dezember bis 11. März 1984, Frankfurt a.M. (1983), no. 74

Weitzmann, K. (ed.), Age of spirituality : late antique and early Christian art, third to seventh century : catalogue of the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, November 19, 1977, through February 12, 1978, New York 1979, 30-31 (J.D. Breckenridge)

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