Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Ancient Heads - IV

Roman Republic
Aes Grave with Head of Janus
225-217 BC
bronze
Saint Louis Art Museum

Ancient Greek Culture in South Italy
Stater of Terina
Head of Nymph and Seated Nike
4th century BC
silver
Cleveland Museum of Art

Roman Empire
Bust of Menander
25 BC-AD 50
bronze
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Roman Empire
Bust of an Athlete
2nd century AD
marble
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Roman Empire
Bust of Germanicus
(nephew and heir of Tiberius)
AD 20-40
marble
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Roman Empire
Head of Augustus
1st century AD
marble
Detroit Institute of Arts

Roman Empire
Head of Cicero
AD 100
marble
(note disgraceful layers of dust on the base)
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Roman Empire
Head of Dioskouros
AD 130
marble
Princeton University Art Museum

Roman Republic
Head of Gaius Cornelius Gallus (possibly)
30 BC
marble
(made in Egypt)
Cleveland Museum of Art

Roman Empire
Head of a Man
1st century AD
marble
Saint Louis Art Museum

Roman Empire
Head of a Man
2nd-3rd century AD
marble
Detroit Institute of Arts

Roman Empire
Head of a Man
2nd century AD
marble
Saint Louis Art Museum

Roman Empire
Head of a Man
2nd century AD
marble
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Roman Republic
Head of a Woman
2nd-1st century BC
marble
Princeton University Art Museum

Roman Empire
Necklace with Lion-Head Closures
4th century AD
gold
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Joseph Wilton
Replica of the Head of Laocoön
1758
marble
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

     "Did you know," Edward remembered saying, "that when Job was finally restored to prosperity and family abundance, one of his daughters was called Box of Eye-Paint? Can we really imagine our tormented hero enjoying his actual reward?"
     "No," said Harvey. "He continued to suffer."
     "Not according to the Bible."
     "Still, I'm convinced he suffered on. Perhaps more."
     "It seems odd, doesn't it," Edward had said, "after he sat on a dung-heap and suffered from skin-sores and put up with his friends' gloating, and lost his family and his cattle, that he should have to go on suffering."
     "It became a habit," Harvey said, "for he not only argued the problem of suffering, he suffered the problem of argument. And that is incurable."
     "But he wanted to argue with God."
     "Yes, but God as a character comes out badly, very badly. Thunder and bluster and I'm Me, who are you? Putting on an act. Behold now Leviathan. Behold now Behemoth. Ha, ha among the trumpets. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? And Job, insincerely and wrongly, says, "I am vile." And God says, All right, that being understood, I give you back double your goods, you can have fourteen thousand sheep and six thousand camels and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she-asses. And seven sons and three daughters. The third daughter was Keren-happuch – that was Eye-Paint."

– Muriel Spark, from The Only Problem (1984)