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© Museu de Badalona
Omeka ID 1894
Ciutat romana de Baetulo. Barri antic de Llefià
Roman world

head of old woman

MB 3297

Object type
sculpture
Production date
50
Fabric
-
Museum
Museu de Badalona
Culture
Roman world
Discovery location
Ciutat romana de Baetulo. Barri antic de Llefià
Materials
marble
Township
Badalona (Europa, Espanya, Catalunya, Barcelona, Barcelonès)
Technique
sculpting
Where is it?
Exposició permanent
Dimensions
33 x 20 cm
Description
Sculpture representing the head of an old woman. It would be part of a funerary sculpture. This sculpture was for a long time in the gardens of the Rectory of Santa María and we know that it came from the area of Llefià, (which formerly included a larger territory than today) as Gaietà Soler indicated in his book in 1890 and, as says Guitart (1976). It very possibly formed part of a funerary monument in the Can Peixau necropolis. In this case, we have the head, albeit badly eroded, of an old woman. It would therefore be the realistic part of a funerary sculpture made of marble and we are missing the body of the sculpture, probably made of local stone. Despite its wear, we can see that her neck is tilted to the right, her forehead and cheeks have wrinkles, and her large eyes are under thick eyebrows. The marked cheekbones allow us to see straight lips and a small jaw with sucked skin, as well as in the part of the neck that realistically marks the advanced age of the person represented, with great expressive force. She wears a veil fastened at the back, which forms pleats at the nape of her neck, but leaves part of her hair exposed, parted in the middle and tied in a low bun. The widows of this time wore an elongated scarf, attached to the hairstyle, which barely exposed the hair and which was a distinctive element of their social category. Although Josep Guitart (1976) gave it a chronology of 40 BC, Montserrat Claveria (2012), gives it an older chronology, the time of the triumvirate (60-50 BC), since she believes that it is fully in line with the trends of the moment, the ancient Roman custom of faithfully reproducing the physiognomic features of the deceased person and the adoption of some Hellenistic influences that were enriching this Roman tradition, as in the case of the expressive twisting of the head. Despite its rigidity and frontality, it has a great expressive force, simple, realistic and dry, but at the same time venerable and dignified, which expresses the last daily role of the person portrayed in life.

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