Getty Museum

Head of a Woman

Date

about 350 B.C.

Medium

Terracotta with clay slip and polychromy (red)

Culture

Greek (South Italian, Tarantine)

Department

Sculpture

Institution

Getty Museum

The face, set on a long neck with two Venus rings, features asymmetrical eyes with thick eyelids, a straight, tapering nose with a flattened ridge, and a full chin with a dimple beneath the fleshy lower lip. The hair, parted in the middle and held back by a diadem, is fashioned with deeply-incised, thick, parallel locks combed back and gathered in a roll behind the neck; the earlobes are pierced for the insertion of earrings. This type, comparable to 82.AD.93.3, is reminiscent of the votive busts widespread in Magna Graecia in the fifth and first half of the fourth centuries B.C., with features recalling the Classical period. The head retains a schematic frontality typical of Sicilian bust types connected to the cult of Demeter.

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