Getty Museum

Portrait Head of Plautilla

Date

A.D. 200–205

Medium

Marble

Culture

Roman

Department

Sculpture

Institution

Getty Museum

Depicted in this portrait is the Empress Plautilla (ca. A.D. 185-212), wife of Caracalla (A.D. 188-217) and daughter of the praetorian prefect Fulvius Plautianus. Few sculptures survive of the empress, who was exiled by her husband in A.D. 205 and then murdered on his orders in A.D. 212. She is shown as a young girl. Her hair is parted in the center, and a series of vertically oriented braids cover the sides and top of her head. These braids come down low on the nape of the neck, where they are folded back up to just below the occiput. Loose waves of hair are brushed over the frontal braids and form a wide band over the forehead. Plautilla was the first empress to wear this elaborately braided hairstyle. She turns her head to her right. Her irises are articulated and her pupils drilled. This head was once attached to a statue. The portrait has been associated stylistically with the third of Plautilla's portrait types. The marble is fine-grained; the surface is eroded. Other damage has occurred to the tip of her nose and to her lips.

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