DiscussionPortrait head of girl ('Fausta'). From Rome or its environs. Early fourth century. DESCRIPTION (Object)Life-size head. H: 22, W: 20, H: 20 cm. Marble. In the eighteenth or nineteenth century the head was mounted on a bust. The break at the neck was smoothed to fit against the marble spacer that would match it to the bust. Both ears and the tip of the nose were also restored at that point. The bust and the restorations have been removed. The hair of the head and eyebrows is delineated with flat chisels. The irises are finely indicated as large and more than semi-circular. The pupils are rounded heart shapes and drilled. PROVENANCE Acquired from the Campana Collection in Rome in 1863. DESCRIPTION (Subject) The head is over life-size if a child is intended. The hair is pulled off the face and arranged at the sides in two tiers of hair that are pulled back and upward. The lower tier, however, has particular criss-cross pattern over the brow. One section of the hair begins over the outer corner of the proper right eye and continues all the way around the left profile. Its upper edge is a shelf-like project. A second section of brushed-back hair with a shelf-like edge begins over the proper left eye and continues around the right profile. A thin braid is pulled from above the nape of the neck to the top of the head where it folds over itself. The area of the top of the head is encircled by a decorated hair band. Around the sides of the smooth brow, short thick locks are rendered at irregular intervals. The round, full-cheeked face has a distinctive aspect. The brow is cut into by high-arching and rope-like eyebrows that meet over the bridge of the nose. The eyes are large. The mouth is full-lipped with a pronounced dip at the centre of the upper lip. The lower lip projects over a rounded chin which features a slight cleft. DATE AND HONORAND Delbreuck identified the honorand as Fausta, daughter of Maximian and wife of Constantine from 307 to 326. Fausta was fifteen at the time of the marriage which would suit the portrait. However, none of the coin portraits show this hairstyle, and the decorated hair band need not be equated with a diadem. Thus, the identification has not always been accepted. The date, however, has. Traditional stylistic considerations (especially its block-like form and frozen stare) lead most scholars to date it to the late Tetrarchic period; see, for example, LSA-897, a portrait of Maxentius. Scholarship of the twentieth century has brought two interesting points to the fore. I. M. Bergmann located two heads on the art market which seem to reproduce a similar hairstyle (even with the criss-crossing front parting), LSA-1300 and LSA-1541. One of these also preserves the same particular form of the mouth, and the other, which has a less specific physiognomy, is set on a statue fragment that seems clearly late Roman in conception. Bergmann argues that the hairstyle is a return to fashion of an earlier Severan style and that these heads need not represent the same woman. De Kersauson, in contrast, saw these all has versions of the same woman and thus, accepted the Fausta identification. Yet she failed to incorporate Fittschen’s contribution to the study, here point II. II. The hairstyle is related loosely to that of Plautilla, wife of Caracalla. The fine head of Plautilla in the Palazzo Massimo in Rome shows (a) the criss-cross front arrangement and (b) the distinctive lips. Plautilla however never wore the central braid up the back or the decorated hair band at the top of the head. But, Fittschen noted that a head of a girl, now in Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio (Fittschen, JdI 1991, pls. 70.1-4) and surely of Severan date, DID have the same central braid at the back. Neither the Toledo head nor the Paris head in discussion bear any obvious signs of re-cutting. Thus, Fittschen concluded that both heads were probably based on the same model but were made centuries apart. Schade combines both Bergmann’s and Fittschen’s points and argues that the ‘Fausta’ portrait is part of trend in which Severan fashions for women returned to to vogue in the fourth century. It is worth noting that neither Fittschen nor subsequently Schade mention LSA-1300 and LSA-1541. If one applies Fittschen’s reasoning to these portraits as well, then one has a model which is copied once in the Severan period and three times in a later period, probably at the end of the third or early fourth century, always at a life-size scale for a girl. The identity of the model becomes intriguing. Main ReferenceFittschen, K. 'Das Mädchenbildniss von Palatin', Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 106, Berlin 1991, 302-303, fn. 36, pls. 65.4, 67.4, 70.4 (fourth c.)de Kersauson, K., Les portraits romains II; de l’année de la guerre civile (68-69 après J-C) à la fin de l’Empire , Paris 1996, 524-5, no. 250 Delbrueck, R., Spätantike Kaiserporträts. Von Constantinus Magnus bis zum Ende des Westreichs , Leipzig 1933, 166-7, pls. 66-7 Bergmann, M., Studien zum römischen Porträt des 3. Jahrhunderts n. Chr., Bonn 1977, 197 (not Fausta but of that era) Discussion ReferencesDemandt, A. and J. Engemann, (eds.), Konstantin der Grosse, Mainz 2007 Donati, A. and G. Gentili, Costantino il Grande. La civiltà antica al bivio tra Occidente e Oriente, Milan 2005, 213-214, no. 10 (D. Roger) L'Orange, H. P., Das spätantike Herrscherbild von Diokletian bis zu den Konstantin-Söhnen, 284-361 n. Chr. Das Römische Herrscherbild. III. Abteilung ; Bd. 4 , Berlin 1984, 153-4 Schade, K., Frauen in der Spätantike--Status und Repräsentation, Mainz 2003, 167-8, no. I 1, pl. 22 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. 36 |
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