Description - Comments:

The head is well preserved, up to the base of the neck. Broken are the upper part of the bun, the largest part of the nose (the drills for the nostrils are preserved), part of the ears and the strophion. Chipping is evident sporadically on the surface of the marble, especially on the forehead. Extensive stains cover the left part of the head. It depicts a teenage girl sporting an oval polished face, small eyes with wide lids, thin eyebrows (the texture of the individual hairs is rendered with short incisions), fleshy lips and small chin. The hair is combed in the “melon” hairstyle both at the front and back of the cylindrical strophion (the portrait-head {Γ77} sports the same coiffure). More specifically, the hair is arranged in parallel vertical “slices” (its texture is indicated by a series of shallow, parallel widely spaced incisions) ending in braids which form a cylindrical bun placed diagonally at the back of the skull. The back of the head is more coarsely worked. Workmanship is characterized by the same “sharpness”, “clarity” and accuracy of technique that we see in the heads {https://achaeanwomen.eie.gr/en/sculpture/?statue_id=678} and {https://achaeanwomen.eie.gr/en/sculpture/?statue_id=682}. It is stylistically close to the portrait-head {https://achaeanwomen.eie.gr/en/sculpture/?statue_id=682}, while the rendering of the eyelids places it to the late period of Hadrian or the early Antonine period (see G. Despinis, Th. Stephanidou-Tiveriou, E. Voutiras eds., Κατάλογος γλυπτών του Αρχαιολογικού Μουσείου Θεσσαλονίκης ΙΙ, Thessaloniki 2003, 168 in cat. no. 278 [Th. Stephaniou-Tiveriou]). The strophion identifies the girl as a young priestess or devotee of Demeter. The presence of two other similar, slightly older, examples of girl portraits from the same sanctuary ({Γ76} and {Γ77}) probably indicates the habit of erecting within the sacred temenos portrait statues of young priestesses or devotees of the worshiped deity, as already known from the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia in Messene (cf. {Γ125}, {Γ126}, and {Γ127}).

Bibliography:

L.D. Caskey, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Catalogue of Greek and Roman Sculpture, Cambridge MA 1925, 215-216, cat. no. 127; M.B. Comstock, C.C. Vermeule, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Sculpture in Stone. The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston 1976, 222, cat. no. 353; M.B. Comstock, C.C. Vermeule III, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Sculpture in Stone and Bronze. Additions to the Collections of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Αrt, 1971-1988, in the Museum of Fine Arts , Boston 1988, 115; C. de Grazia Vanderpool, “A Roman Portrait in the Tripolis Museum”, in O. Palagia, W. Coulson eds., Sculpture from Arcadia and Laconia. Proceedings of an International Conference Held at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, April 10-14, 1992 , Oxford 1993 (Oxbow Monograph 30), 133 with note 19; D.E.E. Kleiner, S.B. Matheson eds., I, Claudia. Women in Ancient Rome, New Haven CT 1996, 173, cat. no. 127 (A.M. Prescher); C. De Grazia Vanderpool, “Roman Portraiture. The Many Faces of Corinth”, in C.K. Williams II, N. Bookidis eds., Corinth XX. Corinth, The Centenary, 1896-1996, Princeton 2003, 373 note 26; M. Tasopoulou, Το πορτρέτο της εποχής του Τραϊανού στην Ελλάδα, Thessaloniki 2018 (MA thesis Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), 67 note 456; https://collections.mfa.org/objects/151348