Only the right part of the head is preserved, with the forehead, cheek, ear and headdress. High quality of workmanship. Most of the eyebrow is also preserved, indicated by a sharp ridge on the surface of the marble. Smaller breaks and chipping are evident on the ear, cheek, forehead and headdress. The head depicts a young girl wearing a thin ribbon (tainia) for holding the hair in place. He has a high forehead, long thin eyebrows and smooth cheeks. The coiffure consists of long flat strands of hair, which are carefully rendered by means of engraved lines, and were probably gathered back in a bun (as I. Chioti notes, this is indicated especially by the arrangement of the locks of hair behind the ear). Small lunate locks of hair are left free in front of the ear and on the forehead above the eye, the latter locks turning towards the right. Although the coiffure shows similarities with official imperial protypes of the Antonine period (see Chioti 2012, 175), the fragmentary state of preservation of the head does not allow us to be certain. Perhaps an additional point in favor, is the fact that contrary to what one would typically expect for a portrait of a young girl, the “melon” coiffure was not selected. Based on the style, the head can be dated to the third quarter of the 2nd c. CE (Chioti 2012, 175).
G. Dontas, Corpus Signorum Imperii Romani. Greece I.1 Les portraits attiques au Musée de l'Acropole, Athènes 2004, 77 cat. no. 65, pl. 49 (late Antonine period); I. Chioti, Αυτοκρατορικά και ιδιωτικά πορτρέτα της εποχής των Αντωνίνων στην Ελλάδα (PhD thesis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), Thessaloniki 2012, 175, 372, cat. no. 232, pl. 187γ-δ (third quarter of the 2nd c. CE; portrait with the hair parted at the top pf the forehead and unknown arrangement at the back).
