Description - Comments:

Most of the statue is preserved, including the head. It is extensively restored, probably by B. Lange (1759-1839). More specifically, modern marble additions are the two forearms together with part of the garments around them, the whole lower part of the statue from below the diplax downwards, including the plinth and the base (completed with plaster at the back). The eyebrows, forehead, nose, mouth, and part of the himation around the face are also restored. The rear is roughly worked. Small breaks and abrasions are observed on the eyes, the left cheek, and sporadically on the garments, especially along the ridges of the folds. It depicts a standing, frontal female figure with head slightly turned to the right. The face is round, fleshy, with puffy cheeks, the neck sturdy. The chin is round, with a double chin below it. The iris and pupil of the eyes are marked. The headdress consists of a stiff wig with eight elongated deep waves on each side. From the height of the temples downwards, long curly locks of hair project under the wig (the texture of the hair is indicated by meticulous incising with the point). Two large and long hair tentacles come from the back of the head and fall freely on the shoulders up to the beginning of the breasts (the texture of the hair is worked with the drill). She wears a foot-long chiton, a fringed himation covering the head and back (up to the hips), as well as a third garment, worn diagonally across the chest (where it creates a short overfold) and covering the left shoulder and arm (diplax? – for the garment see J. Eingartner, Isis und ihre Dienerinnen in der Kunst der römischen Kaiserzeit, Leiden 1991, 33-48, 73-78 [“diplax type”]). Although the statue has been identified as a portrait of Julia Domna in the “Leptis” portrait type, the headdress is quite different. In the “Leptis” type, at the front along the wig from the height of the temples downwards, there is a thick braid and not the free curly locks present here, while the long strands of hair on the shoulders are also absent (J. Meischner, Das Frauenporträt der Severerzeit, Berlin 1967, 46-50, figs. 41-43). To my knowledge, the coiffure does not find exact parallels. The presence of the wig testifies to the wider influence of the iconography of Julia Domna, and places the statue in the first decades of the 3rd c. CE. Although the forearms and the attributes held by the figure are not preserved, the identification of the woman depicted as a priestess of Isis is probable. Firstly, the popularity of the cult of the goddess during the imperial period in Attica is well known, with numerous surviving representations of her devotees adopting elements of her iconography and carrying cult objects (see E.J. Walters, Attic grave reliefs that represent women in the dress of Isis, Pinceton N.J. 1988; L. Mazurek, “Gender and Alterity in Provincial Portraiture. Reconsidering the Isiac Grave Reliefs of Roman Athens”, Hesperia 90 [2021], 605-640). Nevertheless, the statue does not follow the iconographic scheme of Attic Isis adherents closely (the figure doesn’t wear the fringed himation in the same way, while the isiac knot at the center of the chest is also missing [“Isis-knot type”]), but is closer to an iconographic scheme of the goddess which finds greater popularity in the western part of the empire. All surviving examples from Greece (all dated to the 2nd – 3rd c. CE) come from Roman colonies or cities with significant Italian communities, such as Thessaloniki, Messene and Gortyn (L.A. Mazurek, Isis in a Global Empire: Greek Identity through Egyptian Religion in Roman Greece, Cambridge 2022, 97-98 with references [“diplax” type]; also LIMC V [1990], s.v. Isis, 768, nos. 59-61 [Tran Tam Tinh]; Eingartner 1991, 33-48, 73-78 [“diplax” type]). The Louvre statue follows quite closely the statuary type, as seen e.g. in the cult-statue from the temple of the Egyptian gods of Gortyn (LIMC V [1990], s.v. Isis, 768, no. 59 [Tran Tam Tinh]; I. Romeo, E.C. Portale, Gortina. III. Le sculture, Padova 1998, 91-98, cat. no. 14, pl. 6c-d [I. Romeo]). In the Louvre statue the diplax is worn on the left shoulder (cf. the statue of Isis Pelagia from Messene – P. Themelis, “The Cult of Isis at Ancient Messene” in L. Bricault, R. Veymiers eds., Bibliotheca Isiaca II, Bordeaux 2011, 100-103) and not on the right, while the strands of hair on either side of the neck and the fringed himation that covers the head are both considerably longer (cf. the hair tentacles on the shoulders on the well-known Attic funerary stele of Alexandra in the Athens National Museum – N. Kaltsas ed., Εθνικό Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο. Τα γλυπτά. Κατάλογος, Athens 2001, 354, cat. no. 748). The “Modefrisur” coiffure combined with the absence of the symbols of the goddess from the head of the Louvre statue, most probably confirm its identification as a portrait. An analogous, albeit headless, under-life-size statue from the praetorium of Gortyn, which sports an additional floral garland and situla (Messara Archaeological Museum, inv. 166 - LIMC V [1990], s.v. Isis, 768 in no. 59 [Tran Tam Tinh]; Mazurek 2022, 223, note 71), has also been identified as a portrait. 

Bibliography:

H. Kruse, Römische weibliche Gewandstatuen des zweiten jahrhunderts n.Chr., Göttingen 1975, 220-221, 407-408, cat. no. D143, pl. 84; R. Schlüter, Die Bildnisse der Kaiserin Iulia Domna, Münster 1977, 146 (private portrait); K. de Kersauson, Musée du Louvre. Département des antiquités grecques et romaines. Catalogue des portraits romains II, Paris 1996, 370-371, cat. no. 170 with previous literature (Julia Domna - so-called “Leptis” portrait type - as priestess of Isis); https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010275270 (Julia Domna as priestess of Isis).