Julius-Claudius Sculpture

• CE00343
• 27 a.C.- 68 d.C.
• Marble: Carved/Polished

Marble estatue of a women dressed in a stolla, a long and pleated tunic usually worn over an interior tunic. The woman seems to partly cover her stolla with a palla, a mantle or shawl used in a way similar to the togas and held with brooches or pins at the left shoulder, creating numerous folds. The statue has lost the head and part of the upper right body, as well as the hands.

She seems to be dressed in the manner of a Roman matron. The statues from the Julius-Claudies Dynasty generally depict a member of the Imperial family, or upper class people. The statue might have had a funerary function, as part of a tomb or mausoleum. Women were usually represented in a specific posture, the "puditicia pose", an iconography originally from the Hellenistic period that was widely used for funerary Roman matrons depictions between the 1st century b.C. and the 1st century a.C. This statue quite probably held the puditicia pose, with a risen arm, lightly holding the palla around her head, but the lack of arm makes it difficult to ascertain.