Extra Content

Discussion

Portrait head of empress, Theodora? From Milan. Mid-sixth century.

DESCRIPTION (Object)
Life-size head. H: 27 cm. Fine-grained white marble.

The head is broken through the neck below the chin. The tip of the nose is missing. The right cheek and hair at the right brow are abraded. There are numerous other minor chips and scratches. The left side and back are stained. On both sides of the head are holes for the insertion of separately worked decoration.

PROVENANCE/LOCATION
Discovered in 1846 century in via Primo in Milan during the demolition of the medieval city walls. It is now in the Castello Sforzesco (inv. 755).

DESCRIPTION (Subject)
The portrait is of a woman of mature years with a slim face. Her large heavy-lidded eyes with incised irises and drilled pupils look straight ahead under broad arching brows. Mouth, cheeks and chin are delicately modelled.

The woman wears a crown comprising a pearl- and jewel-laden diadem encircling a snooped hairstyle: tall, with the diadem high off the brows, and the entire mass balanced farther back on the head. The three hoops of pearls over the cap are all longitudinal, and only the central one with a double row. The diadem itself has two rows of pearls and an elaborate central jewel with three pendants; it is tied behind the head with an elaborate knot.

This diadem type cannot be dated earlier than A.D. 500. On the sides there are circular indentations that indicate where prependoulia would have been attached. This element is important, because the supposed lack of prependoulia has been recently used to ascribe this piece to the Theodosian period. The head has also been seen as sharing similarities with a statuette of an empress often identified as Aelia Flaccilla (LSA-568) and as Galla Placidia.

However, on stylistic ground the marble head can be dated to the 6th century and, by comparison to Procopius’ description of the empress in the Secret History and to the mosaic panel at San Vitale and, it has been identified as Theodora. Such identification remains uncertain, because it relies on the assumption that Procopius’ account is accurate, and it is far from certain that the mosaic image of the empress in Ravenna was intended to be a precise portrait.

DATE
Because of the diadem the sculpture must post-date A.D. 500. If the sculpture’s identification as a portrait of the late Theodora it is correct, the statue should be dated before 548, year of the death of the empress. Hence, its erection in Milan should have taken place in the aftermath of the Gothic Wars.

Yuri Marano

Main Reference

Schade, K., Frauen in der Spätantike--Status und Repräsentation, Mainz 2003, 227-8, no. I 67, pl. 67.2-4

Delbrueck, R., 'Porträts byzantinischer Kaiserinnen', Mitteilungen des Kaiserlich Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Mitteilungen 28 , Berlin 1913, 347-50

MacClanan, A., Representations of Early Byzantine Empresses. Image and Empire, New York 2002, 140-143

Discussion References

De’ Maffei, F. 'La mimesi dal tardoantico al bizantino nei ritratti imperiali dal III al V secolo', La mimesi bizantina, Atti della quarta Giornata di studi bizantini sotto il patrocinio dell’Associazione Italiana di Studi Bizantino (Milano, 16-17 maggio 1996), ITALOELLHNIKA Quaderni 9, Naples 1998, 81-4

James, L., Empresses and Power in Early Byzantium, Leicester 2001, 34

Sande, S., 'Zur Porträtplastik des 6. Jhds n. Chr.,' , Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia, 6 (1975), 65-166., 96-7

Stichel, R. H. W., Die römische Kaiserstatue am Ende der Antike, Roma 1982, 63-4, pl. 33

von Heintze, H. ‘Ein spätantikes Mädchenportät in Bonn. Zur stilitischen Entwicklung des Frauenbildnisses im 4. und 5. Jahrhundert’, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 14, Münster 1971, 83, no. VI 7, pls. 17b, 18b, and 19a (late fourth to early fifth century)

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, 33, no. 27

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