Head of a Young Woman from a Grave Naiskos
about 320 B.C.
- Medium
- Marble
- Dimensions
- 34.3 × 15.6 cm
- Status
- In Museum Collection
- Collect24 Art ID
- C24-224379
Originally part of a funerary monument, this head of a girl displays facial features and a hairstyle typical of Athenian sculpture in the late 300s B.C. The girl's oval face, small, bow-shaped mouth, and deep-set, thick-lidded eyes derive from features made popular in the preceding decades in the work of the sculptor Praxiteles. She wears her hair parted in rows, braided and pulled back, a style called a melon coiffure by scholars. On the girl's neck, there are two widely spaced fleshy rings with an indentation between them, so-called "Venus rings." This trait was probably a status symbol, indicating the health and good nutrition provided by wealth. This head was made separately and inserted into a body carved in relief on the back slab of a naiskos, or small three-sided funerary monument. The flat surfaces on the back of the head rested against the slab. They show that the girl was posed in a three-quarter frontal view.
Provenance
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu, California
Registry history
- about 320 B.C. — Recorded in the collection of J. Paul Getty Museum — sculpture
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