Funerary relief of Hadirat Katthina, daughter of Sha'ad

A.D. 200–220

Medium

Limestone with polychromy and gilding

Dimensions

50.8 × 40.6 cm

Status

In Museum Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-190397

Hadirat Katthina’s portrait, carved in high relief, shares many features with the approximately 3700 other Palmyran funerary reliefs known today. She faces forward, eyes open and alert, with incised eyebrows, irises, and pupils. Her oval face, turned slightly to her left, has a thin nose with wide nostrils, small mouth with full, closed lips, and dimpled chin. A long veil with scalloped upper edges covers most of her head along with a tightly bound “turban” with a central loop, but her long, thick hair nonetheless flows out from a central part in abundant waves. She wears a light, long-sleeved tunic and pulls a heavier fringed mantle tightly around her. Her right hand protrudes from her garment and her elongated fingers grasp its edge in a gesture associated with the virtue of modesty in ancient Roman funerary reliefs. Her lowered left arm crosses her body diagonally and the hand, with fingers extended, rests below her right elbow. Her long neck, with the pronounced fleshy folds conventionally called “Venus rings” by scholars of ancient art, is adorned by a beaded necklace, and she also wears pendant earrings and a jeweled ring on the now-broken little finger of her left hand. The…