Portrait of a Woman with a Hairstyle Similar to that of the Empress Livia in the Princeton University Art Museum, August 2009

Portrait of a Woman
Late Republican, ca. 40-30 BC
Carrara marble

# Y1984-77

The dates of imperial portraits are based largely on comparisons with coin portraits; in turn, heads of private individuals can be roughly dated by their relationship to imperial portraiture. This woman's distinctive coiffure, with the hair above the forehead gathered into a bulge (nodus), then collected in a strand extending back to a knot of braids on the nape, has close parallels among the early portraits of Livia, wife of the emperor Augustus. The head was made for insertion into a separately carved statue, bust, or herm (a shaft of marble with a head on top).

Text from the Princeton University Art Museum label.