Faculty of Classics - University of Cambridge

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"Livia"

Dating from around 50 CE, this female head was sometimes called Livia, wife of Augustus. However, the style of her hair was in fashion about twenty years after Livia died.

The story was further complicated in 1980 when it was discovered that the head from the brow upward was made of a different type of marble, and therefore was an unreliable restoration. The upper part of her head has now been removed from the original. Traces of paint are still visible on the eyeballs of the original

Material: 
Marble
Location of Original: 

Copenhagen Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek 747

Size: 
0.27m
Accession: 

Purchased from the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in 1933

References: 

Poulsen: Katalog over Antike Skulpturen Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, 415, pl. L
Hekler: Greek and Roman Portraits, 209
Geotheit: Zum Bildnis der Livia, Festschrift für Andreas Rumpf (1952) (for theory that it is not Livia)
Johansen, F: Catalogue of Roman Portraits in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (1994), vol.1, 104, no.40

Date: 
c.50 CE
Provenance: 

Found in Rome. In a private collection until 1887

Number: 
526

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