Skip to main content
© Bruce M. White, 2013.
Head of a Veiled Woman, perhaps a Goddess
© Bruce M. White, 2013.
© Bruce M. White, 2013.
© Bruce M. White, 2013.
ClassificationsGreek and Roman Art

Head of a Veiled Woman, perhaps a Goddess

AAT Object Form/Functionsculpture (visual works)
Possible OriginAthens, Greece, Europe
CultureRoman
PeriodImperial, Hadrianic
Dateca. 130 CE
MediumMarble (Pentelikon)
Credit LineCarlos Collection of Ancient Art
Dimensions5 1/2 x 6 1/4 x 4 1/8 in. (14 x 15.8 x 10.4 cm)
Object number1994.002
Label TextThis small head of a veiled woman is carved in classicising style with centrally-parted, wavy hair tucked back beneath the veil, and sensual, broad features. It comes from a large high-relief frieze depicting a series of standing figures, probably deities, that decorated a public structure erected in the Athenian agora in the late Hadrianic period.

Exhibition HistoryArt Antique: Collections Privees de Suisse Romande, Musee Rath a Geneve et a la Fondation Martin Bodmer a Cologny, October 10 - December 7, 1975
MCCM Permanent Collection Galleries, 1994 - October 1997
The Art of Collecting: Recent Acquisitions at the Michael C. Carlos Museum, Michael C. Carlos Museum, November 8, 1997 - January 4, 1998
MCCM Permanent Collection Galleries, February 1998 - May 2004
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, September 2004 - September 30, 2014
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, February 23, 2015 - October 3, 2022
Connections: the Power of Objects, Schatten Corridor Gallery, Robert W. Woodruff Gallery, Emory University, October 20, 2022 - January 8, 2023.
MCCM Permanent Collection installation, January 9, 2023 -
Published ReferencesWaldemar Deonna, "Tete feminine de l'Acropole d'Athenes," Monuments et memoires de la Fondation Eugene Piot 31 (1930): 1-8.
Charles Picard, "De l'<> de la Lesche delphique aux metopes nord du Parthenon," Revue des Etudes Grecques 50 (Avril-Juin 1937): 182.
Charles Picard, Manuel d'archeologie greque. La Sculpture II, Periode Classique - Ve Siecle (Paris: Auguste Picard, 1939), 428, note 2.
Hans Schrader, "Das Zeusbild des Pheidias in Olympia," Archaologischer Anzeiger 56 (1941): 37, Abb. 54-55.
Ernst Langlotz, Phidiasprobleme (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1948), 99.
Felix Eckstein, "Die Sudmetopen des Parthenon und die Carreyschen Zeichnungen," Archaologischer Anzeiger 68 (1953): 79-80, note 1.
Karl Schefold, Meisterwerke griechischer Kunst (Basel: Benno Schwabe & Co., 1960), 79, note 1.
Frank Brommer, Die Metopen des Parthenon: Katalog and Untersuchung (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1967), 147, number 247.
Jose Dorig, Art Antique: Collections privees de Suisse romande. Exposition, Musee Rath, Geneve, et Fondation Martin Bodmer. Cologny, 10 octobre - 7 decembre 1975 (Geneve: Editions archeologiques de l'Universite de Geneve, 1975), number 243.
Michael C. Carlos Museum Handbook (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 1996), 60.
Georgios I. Despinis, Hochrelieffriese des 2. Jahrhunderts n. Chr. aus Athen (Munich: Hirmer, 2003), 53, Kat IV 3, tafel 57-59.
ProvenanceSaid to have been found on the Acropolis, Athens, Greece, ca. 1860. Ex coll. Madame G. Pugnat. Deposited by Madame Pugnat at Musee d'Art et d'Histoire, Geneva, Switzerland, June 24, 1930. Thence by descent. Purchased by MCCM from Pugnat family through Christoph Leon.
Status
On view
Collections
  • Greek and Roman Art