A Marble Portrait Bust of a Lady of the Imperial Family, probably the Empress Sabina, Roman Imperial, Hadrianic, circa A.D. 130

turned slightly to her right and wearing a chiton and himation, her eyes with incised irises, the pupils drilled at a later date and now filled in, her wavy hair parted in the center, drawn back behind the ears and up from the nape of the neck into a turban of coiled braids, a curl carefully arranged in front of each ear.

Pietro Stettiner (b. 1855), Rome, prior to 1912
François Olive, Saint-Lys, France, acquired in the 1950s/1960s
Drouot, Paris, Blanchet et associés, commissaires-priseurs, Paris, December 21st, 2005, no. 190, illus.

Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Rome, neg. nos. 3064-3065, accessioned in 1912 (http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/marbilderbestand/850805)
Georg Lippold, ed., Photographische Einzelaufnahmen antiker Skulpturen, Serie XVIIB, Munich, 1947, no. 5078, illus.
Paul Zanker and Klaus Fittschen, Katalog der römischen Porträts in den Capitolinischen Museen und den anderen kommunalen Sammlungen der Stadt Rom, Mainz am Rhein, 1983, p. 62, d
Susan B. Matheson, “A Woman of Consequence,” Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin, 1992, p. 90, figs. 4-5
Klaus Fittschen, “Courtly Portraits of Women in the Era of the Adoptive Emperors (AD 98-180) and their Reception in Roman Society,” in Diana E.E Kleiner and Susan B. Matheson, eds., I, Claudia: Women in Ancient Rome, exh. cat., New Haven, 1996, p. 48 and note 71
Pieter B.F.J. Broucke, Catalogue entry no. 30: "Portrait of Avidia Plautia," in Diana E.E Kleiner and Susan B. Matheson, eds., I, Claudia: Women in Ancient Rome, exh. Cat., New Haven, 1996, p. 74 and note 1
Laure Chevalier, “[Un] buste de l’impératrice Vibia Sabina,” in Galerie Tarantino, Paris, Cabinet d’antiques, exh. cat., Paris, 2011, no. 20, pp. 60-66, illus.
Arachne: central object database of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) and the Archaeological Institute of the University of Cologne, nos. 848635 and 850805

Head and bust appear to belong together, patches of marble restoration around the neck, three small parts of the drapery, front of chin, half of lower lip, nose, and small area in back of turban restored in marble, both ears restored in plaster, pupils filled in,otherwise as shown.
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The existence of another portrait of the same woman, which is in the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven (inv. no. 1992.2.1), suggests that she was a member of the Imperial family rather than a private individual.

The Yale portrait was first identified as the Empress Vibia Sabina by Andrea Carandini (see Broucke, op. cit., 1996, p. 75, no. 2). Susan Matheson (op. cit., 1992) considers this possibility as well, but offers an alternative identification as Avidia Plautia, the mother of Lucius Verus (idem: Broucke, op. cit., 1996, who dates the bust circa A.D. 136-138).

In the first full publication of the present bust Laure Chevalier (op. cit., 2011) argues that it represents Vibia Sabina, and is one of several versions, probably among the closest ones to the original, of a portrait type created circa A.D. 130 in a Greek workshop on the occasion of Sabina's visit to the Aegean in A.D. 128/129.

In addition to the present portrait and the one at Yale, at least two other marble heads of Sabina could be categorized as examples or variants of the Greek archetype: one in the Malmö Museum (A. Carandini, Vibia Sabina, Florence, 1969, p. 151-153), and the other in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens (Carandini, op. cit., p. 164). Also probably reflecting the lost archetype are a numismatic portrait from Amisos dated A.D. 134, and a carnelian intaglio in the Hermitage Museum (Carandini, op. cit., p. 118, fig. 143, and p. 112, fig. 108, respectively).

Local styles and preferences may account for the differences in hairstyle and other details between the various versions. For instance, the drilled pupils on the Yale example would represent an early use of this feature in the Hadrianic period in Rome, while the originally unarticulated pupils on the present example would suggest that Greek workshops had not yet adopted it by the time the bust was carved, namely around A.D. 130.

The art dealer and collector Pietro Stettiner published a generously illustrated book on Rome's monuments (Roma nei suoi monumenti: Illustrazione storico-cronologica, Rome, 1911), as well as several monographs and articles in the field of ancient numismatics. See Ludwig Pollak, Römische Memoiren: Künstler, Kunstliebhaber, und Gelehrte, 1893-1943, M. Merkel Guldan, ed., Rome, 1994, p. 152.

Photograph by Raphael Chipault for Agalmata.