Bearded Male Head of Dionysus
101-200
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Bearded Male Head of Dionysus
101-200
Physical Qualities
Marble, 12 H x 6 W x 7 D cm.
Credit Line
Antioch Subscription Fund
Object Number
1938.715
The miniature male head is characterized by an expressionless frontal gaze, wavy hair, a pronounced long beard that reaches past the neckline, and a moustache with turned-up ends. The hair is gathered in a wavy roll on each side of the part down the middle of the crown and bound by a fillet. There is some damage to the nose area.
While not identical this head can be associated with a series of herm types. Whether they represent Dionysos or Hermes is difficult to determine, but this examples seems to derive from the Hermes Propylaios of Alkamenes, of about 430-420. It is marked by an archaizing style, especially the regularized linear treatment of the hair and beard. This head was undoubtedly part of the sculpture inventory of an Antiochene house, perhaps occupying a niche or mounted on a pillar.
Excavating Antioch: The Archaology of an Ancient City
"Antioch-on-the Orontes, III," Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1941, p. 118, no. 257.
Kondoleon, Christine, ed. Antioch: The Lost Ancient City. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press in association with the Worcester Art Museum, 2000, p. 180, ill.
Inscribed: "2-168/53 64"
