Day 47 - Veiled head of a woman
April 25, 2018
Gallery 158, with objects largely from the 4th century B.C.E., is blessedly free (almost) of painted vases. (I was chagrined when Janet Mindes asked me the other day whether I prefer black-figure or red-figure vases, adding that they are really very different, and I didn't have an answer for her.) Instead, there are many marble statues and steles that served as grave markers; some wonderfully elaborate gold earrings, including a pair depicting what I took to be a boy riding a dolohin but really showing a cupid-figure riding a dove (oh well, I didn't get that close a look at them); and slver objects, including one that looks for all the world like a strainer -- and is! (But what a strainer- was it actually put to household use or employed mainly in rituals, I wonder?)
I'm tempted to write about. a small terracotta statuette of two girls playing a game in which one rides piggyback, her left foot lifted above the ground, simply because it is so playful, such a sharp remove and relief from the stoic reserve of the funerary statues. But the object that really haunts me is the marble head of a woman, perhaps 15 inches high, from the late 4th cntury B.C.E. Her curly hair above her high forehead is topped by a mantle. But what is so striking about the figure is that her face is half-veiled, as if a wind had blown a fine, semi-transparent cloth into soft folds across the right side of her face and the sculptor had frozen this moment in time. Her right eye, along with the right sides of her nose and mouth, can be discerned though the fabric, but the veil gives her an enigmatic appearance; I can't help but associate her with the Mona Lisa. The caption says that the figure may represent a goddess, in which case the aura of mystery is completely appropriate. It also says that the veil may be a sign of mourning, and that the majority of such veiled figures belonged to three-quarter length statues that served as funerary markers. I'm a bit disappointed to learn that this veiled head is far from unique; such heads were probably, if not a dime a dozen, in wide circulation. But she is unique to me.
I'm tempted to write about. a small terracotta statuette of two girls playing a game in which one rides piggyback, her left foot lifted above the ground, simply because it is so playful, such a sharp remove and relief from the stoic reserve of the funerary statues. But the object that really haunts me is the marble head of a woman, perhaps 15 inches high, from the late 4th cntury B.C.E. Her curly hair above her high forehead is topped by a mantle. But what is so striking about the figure is that her face is half-veiled, as if a wind had blown a fine, semi-transparent cloth into soft folds across the right side of her face and the sculptor had frozen this moment in time. Her right eye, along with the right sides of her nose and mouth, can be discerned though the fabric, but the veil gives her an enigmatic appearance; I can't help but associate her with the Mona Lisa. The caption says that the figure may represent a goddess, in which case the aura of mystery is completely appropriate. It also says that the veil may be a sign of mourning, and that the majority of such veiled figures belonged to three-quarter length statues that served as funerary markers. I'm a bit disappointed to learn that this veiled head is far from unique; such heads were probably, if not a dime a dozen, in wide circulation. But she is unique to me.
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