Portrait Head of a Female Figure (Back)

The head is broken from a statue of a young woman with a frontal presentation. The top and back of the head are unfinished and left in a roughed out state. The carving of the head is of high quality with the physiognomy and hair rendered in a naturalistic manner. The face is narrow with a pointed chin, and slopes back sharply at the sides from the front. The nose and mouth are small. The eyes are narrow with sharply chiseled margins on the upper lids. The ears are well-modeled with twisted hoop earrings. There are two Venus marks on the front of the neck. The woman wears her hair in a style known as the melon coiffure, because the vertical rows of curls resemble a lobed melon. The hair is arranged with vertical rows of curls pulled up high from the forehead with a horizontal braid or, more likely, a wreath of leaves on the top. The back of the head is covered with a veil. There are traces of red pigment on the proper right cheek just below the inner eye and on the front of the veil at proper right.