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Portrait of a Lady: a New Statue at the Yale University Art Gallery Lisa R

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Portrait of a Lady: a New Statue at the Yale University Art Gallery Lisa R 26.1654.P143 11/20/08 10:55 PM Page 143 Portrait of a Lady: A New Statue at the Yale University Art Gallery lisa r. brody Both Greek and Roman societies judged men dissemination. A woman might be shown and women by certain standards. Women as Aphrodite, even nude or seminude, and were expected to be modest, chaste, and the image would be interpreted as a state- reserved; these values determined her level ment about the woman’s beauty and charm. of respect from family and peers.1 These Hellenistic examples frequently display less personal moralities are central not only in concern for individual appearance, so that the written traditions of the ancient world even statues designed as portraits tend toward but also in its portraiture. Hellenistic and idealization. In the Roman period, statues Roman portraits of women typically show tended to be strongly personalized, often them in canonical modes connected to cer- including a contemporary fashion hairstyle. tain traits, so that the images would be easily Exceptions appear in the Greek East, where understood as commentary on life-style and patrons and sculptors maintained strong ties disposition. The Gallery’s recent acquisition to Hellenistic traditions. (fig. 1) is a perfect example of such a portrait; There are several variations of the it follows a scheme known to scholars as pudicitia statue type, though all carry the pudicitia and asserts a strong visual statement same connotations when chosen for a about the decorous and modest character of portrait. Some versions shift the weight the woman shown. She stands in a self- to the opposite leg and/or reverse the posi- contained pose, her body enveloped by rich tion of the arms. The arrangement and garments and one arm bent so that the hand treatment of the drapery sometimes also is near the face. This type was a popular varies. The new Yale statue is a high-quality option for images of women, not only in example of the so-called Braccio Nuovo freestanding statuary but also in relief sculp- type, named for a statue in the Vatican ture, beginning in the eastern Mediterranean Museums, in Rome (fig. 2). In this type, around the second century b.c. and spread- the edge of the mantle falls in front of ing west.2 It continued to appear through the the body, crossing over the left wrist and second century a.d., though with decreasing creating a long diagonal line that accentu- regularity after the early Imperial period. ates the figure’s elegant stance. In creating a late Hellenistic or Roman The Gallery’s new statue was acquired at portrait, artists chose from a variety of Sotheby’s in New York in December 2007.3 standard body types, most of which were It came from a private owner in France and loaded with meaning from centuries of had stood in a garden there since being 143 26.1654.P144 11/20/08 10:55 PM Page 144 26.1654.P145 11/20/08 10:56 PM Page 145 purchased from London antiquities dealer Fig. 1 (opposite). Figure of a Woman, Roman, b.c. a.d. 15 Robert Kime, who had acquired it at a 1st century –early 1st century Marble, 77 ⁄16 x 5 ¿ Sotheby’s auction in England in 1987.4 Cer- 30 ⁄16 x 18 in. (198 x 77 x 46 cm). Yale University Art Gallery, Purchased with the Ruth Elizabeth White and tain restorations, particularly the right arm, Leonard C. Hanna, Jr., b.a. 1913, Funds, 2007.207.1 suggest that the statue was in a European collection by at least the nineteenth century, Fig. 2 (above, left). Statue of a Woman, Braccio Nuovo when such techniques were common. type (right hand and head restored), Roman, late 1st The slightly over life-size marble statue, century a.d. Marble, h. 6 ft. 9√ in. (2.08 m). Vatican six feet tall, portrays a woman in a frontal Museums, Rome, Braccio Nuovo 23 pose with her weight primarily on her right Fig. 3 (above, right). Photoshop reconstruction of fig. 1 leg, her left leg bent and set slightly forward. She wears a long dress (chiton) covered by a mantle (himation) and thin-soled shoes of soft leather. True to the pudicitia scheme, the left arm crosses in front of the torso, 145 281423.P146 11/26/08 10:34 AM Page 146 enveloped in layers of drapery. The original also restored in marble. There are significant right arm would have been bent so that the repairs to the neck and surrounding drapery, hand was near the chin, possibly grasping with fragments of marble pieced together the mantle that is drawn up over the head and the joins covered with epoxy resin. The (fig. 3). The mantle is notable for its fringed nose, upper lip, and left pointer finger are edge, carefully and skillfully carved. Such restored using epoxy; some or all of these fringe is a distinctive and individualizing restorations were likely added by Robert element; fringed garments were worn by Kime as the 1987 Sotheby’s catalogue seems both men and women in antiquity and were to show the nose and part of the upper lip associated with Hellenistic royalty and the missing, with a dowel hole for a previous luxurious East.5 The closed shoes are another restored nose visible. There is a large chip specific feature, a distinctive fashion element missing from the proper-right cheek, and of metropolitan Rome.6 Since we lack the another large loss on the back of the head inscription that originally would have accom- (the latter was never repaired because the panied this statue on its base, we must rely statue probably would have stood against a upon such iconographic clues in discussing wall or in a niche, so that the back would its identity and context. not have been visible). Two holes in a broken The carving on the Gallery’s statue is area on top of the head indicate another exceptionally fine, showing great sensitivity restoration (now missing). The statue stands to contrast in texture and detail of drapery. on a new marble base. The surface is covered In typical Hellenistic-style sculptural fash- with gray-black dirt and green moss as well ion, the lines of the heavier chiton are visible as iron oxide stains, a condition that is a beneath the thinner mantle overlay. The result of the statue standing outside. The complex patterns of folds and creases balance 1987 Sotheby’s catalogue shows that it was the compositional lines and stabilize the already in a similar state then, suggesting figure. The face is idealized, the hair brushed that the object had already been in a collec- back in waves from a central part. It recalls tion and displayed outdoors for many years images of Greek goddesses and suggests a prior to 1987. Extensive cleaning and conser- strong Classical tradition, such as existed in vation will take place during the 2008–9 the Greek East even into the Roman era.7 academic year. Although largely complete, the statue After treatment, the pudicitia statue has undergone several repairs and restora- is certain to become a highlight of the tions. These treatments are now being stud- Gallery’s collection. Surrounded by divine ied to determine an appropriate plan for and mythological statues, portrait heads conservation and display. As mentioned and busts, and other objects of ancient art, above, the right arm is obviously restored. it will speak elegantly to the visitor of sculp- The marble limb may have been crafted tural style and portrait traditions during in the eighteenth or nineteenth century, the late Hellenistic and early Roman eras. specifically for the restoration, or it may Scholars, faculty, and students will examine have been borrowed from another ancient the significance of its type, costume, and statue. The long-sleeved garment on this probable context, while nonspecialists will arm suggests that, if ancient, it comes from be drawn to the quality of its carving and a statue of a male barbarian. A round marble the elegance of its composition. We at the plug conceals the dowel used to attach the Yale University Art Gallery look forward arm, and the seam where the arm joins the to seeing the statue through its course body was later filled with epoxy resin. of conservation, from which we expect it Other areas of the statue, including the to emerge as a spectacular example of chin and two fingers of the left hand, were ancient portraiture. 146 26.1654.P147 11/20/08 10:56 PM Page 147 1. The ancient Latin terms associated with these the fringe gold, e.g. Ovid, Met. 2.734, 5.51. One values include pudicitia, castitas, sanctitas, modestia, instance of a very similar fringed mantle appears on with related concepts such as eidos and sophrosyne the famous Hellenistic bronze dancer (the so-called in Greek. See R. R. R. Smith, Hellenistic Sculpture: Baker Dancer) owned by the Metropolitan Museum A Handbook (London: Thames and Hudson, 1991), of Art, in New York (inv. no. 1972.118.95). For such 84–85; Paul Zanker, “The Hellenistic Grave Stelai garments worn by men, with their connotation of from Smyrna,” Images and Ideologies: Self-Definition luxury, see Christopher Hallett, The Roman Nude: in the Hellenistic World, ed. Anthony Bulloch et al. Heroic Portrait Statuary 200 BC–AD 300 (Oxford: (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), Oxford University Press, 2005), 132–36. 222–27; Paul Zanker, “Brüche im Bürgerbild? Zur 6. Norma Goldman, “Roman Footwear,” The World bürgerlichen Selbstdarstellung in den hellenistischen of Roman Costume, ed.
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