Gallerie degli Uffizi – Imperial Dames, XIII
Portrait of Marcia Otacilia Severa or Otacilia Severa, Empress of Rome and wife of Emperor Marcus Julius Philippus or Philip the Arab, who reigned over the Roman Empire from 244 to 249; previously supposed to represent the empress Furia Sabina Tranquillina.
This work is one of the six sculptures recognized as replicas of a common original; since it survived in so many copies, presumably represented a woman of imperial rank. The subject of the portrait wears her hair in the coiffure commonly known as a “Scheitelzopf”, or “skull-braid”: her hair is parted in the center, crimped into artificial waves, drawn back behind the ears, and allowed to fall halfway down the neck. At the middle of the neck, the hair is bound into several braids, which are drawn in a broad band up the back of the head to the crown, where they can be seen in frontal view, forming a flat rim at the top of the head. The girl’s face is broad and round-cheeked, but tapers sharply to a small, pointed chin, so that in frontal view the portrait has a basically triangular outline. The point of the narrow chin is echoed in the upper face by the apex of the hairline at the central part; the hair has been used to frame the forehead and eye area as a broad isosceles triangle. The alignment of these two triangles creates an emphasis on the central axis of the face which is further enhanced by the small, angular dip of the center of the mouth, and by, the strikingly regular symmetry of the features. Within its firm, geometric outlines, the face is represented with an austere simplicity of modeling and detail. The cheeks and forehead are convex, but the curvature of their surfaces is regular and smooth. However, a few dark, deeply cut and emphatic lines of shadow cause the eyes and mouth to stand out sharply from the rest of the smooth face, and to catch the viewer’s attention.
This portrait type displays a pleasing and harmonious treatment of the female face, yet one which makes significant uses of subtle abstraction, in the geometric simplicity of shapes and in the reliance on line more than on plastic modeling to define certain features.
Whom does it represent? The correct identification of the character is an open question. The type of coiffure displayed by this portrait can be seen on the coin profiles of several Augustae of the mid-third century. Bernoulli, when classifying these works as replicas of a single type, identified the subject as Furia Sabina Tranquillina, the wife of the young emperor Gordian III, and the daughter of Timesitheus, the powerful prefect of Gordian’s praetorian guard. Tranquillina’s public portraits would presumably date from the period between her marriage in A.D. 241 and her husband’s death in A.D. 244. This identification was accepted by Vagn Poulsen, Bergmann and Wegner, among others. However, a number of scholars, including Frederik Poulsen and Felletti-Maj, have preferred to identify the subject of the type as Otacilia Severa, the wife of Philip the Arab (244-248 A.C.), Gordian’s usurper and successor. This identification is supported by the comparison with coin portraits of the Empress. They show the same hairstyle and the same physiognomy (profile line). This portrait type is likely to have originated on the occasion of her elevation to Augusta right at the beginning of the reign of Philip the Arab.
Otacilia’s coin portraits, like those of her predecessor, show an hairstyle of a type similar to the one worn in this sculptural portrait. But according to the coins' portraits the braids worn by Otacilia generally reaches only to the rear of the cramium, it does not extend far onto the top of the head. Otacilia’s coin profiles, furthermore, show certain features such as a rounded, slack chin line which indicate that she may have been older, and certainly that she was plumper, than the subject of the portrait type in question. The most important divergence of Otacilia’s coin portraits from this work, however, is the overall shape of the head,
which tends to be rectangular, with a long, heavy face, and an elongated, flat line at the rear of the cranium. The subject of these sculptural portraits is clearly brachycephalic, with a rounded cranium the form of which is emphasized by the curve of
the braids.
Source: Wood S., “Subject and Artist: Studies in Roman Portraiture of the Third Century”
Marble sculpture
Head: ca. 245 AD – Bust: modern
Height 44 cm; height of the ancient part 26 cm.
Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Inv. 1914, no. 265
Gallerie degli Uffizi – Imperial Dames, XIII
Portrait of Marcia Otacilia Severa or Otacilia Severa, Empress of Rome and wife of Emperor Marcus Julius Philippus or Philip the Arab, who reigned over the Roman Empire from 244 to 249; previously supposed to represent the empress Furia Sabina Tranquillina.
This work is one of the six sculptures recognized as replicas of a common original; since it survived in so many copies, presumably represented a woman of imperial rank. The subject of the portrait wears her hair in the coiffure commonly known as a “Scheitelzopf”, or “skull-braid”: her hair is parted in the center, crimped into artificial waves, drawn back behind the ears, and allowed to fall halfway down the neck. At the middle of the neck, the hair is bound into several braids, which are drawn in a broad band up the back of the head to the crown, where they can be seen in frontal view, forming a flat rim at the top of the head. The girl’s face is broad and round-cheeked, but tapers sharply to a small, pointed chin, so that in frontal view the portrait has a basically triangular outline. The point of the narrow chin is echoed in the upper face by the apex of the hairline at the central part; the hair has been used to frame the forehead and eye area as a broad isosceles triangle. The alignment of these two triangles creates an emphasis on the central axis of the face which is further enhanced by the small, angular dip of the center of the mouth, and by, the strikingly regular symmetry of the features. Within its firm, geometric outlines, the face is represented with an austere simplicity of modeling and detail. The cheeks and forehead are convex, but the curvature of their surfaces is regular and smooth. However, a few dark, deeply cut and emphatic lines of shadow cause the eyes and mouth to stand out sharply from the rest of the smooth face, and to catch the viewer’s attention.
This portrait type displays a pleasing and harmonious treatment of the female face, yet one which makes significant uses of subtle abstraction, in the geometric simplicity of shapes and in the reliance on line more than on plastic modeling to define certain features.
Whom does it represent? The correct identification of the character is an open question. The type of coiffure displayed by this portrait can be seen on the coin profiles of several Augustae of the mid-third century. Bernoulli, when classifying these works as replicas of a single type, identified the subject as Furia Sabina Tranquillina, the wife of the young emperor Gordian III, and the daughter of Timesitheus, the powerful prefect of Gordian’s praetorian guard. Tranquillina’s public portraits would presumably date from the period between her marriage in A.D. 241 and her husband’s death in A.D. 244. This identification was accepted by Vagn Poulsen, Bergmann and Wegner, among others. However, a number of scholars, including Frederik Poulsen and Felletti-Maj, have preferred to identify the subject of the type as Otacilia Severa, the wife of Philip the Arab (244-248 A.C.), Gordian’s usurper and successor. This identification is supported by the comparison with coin portraits of the Empress. They show the same hairstyle and the same physiognomy (profile line). This portrait type is likely to have originated on the occasion of her elevation to Augusta right at the beginning of the reign of Philip the Arab.
Otacilia’s coin portraits, like those of her predecessor, show an hairstyle of a type similar to the one worn in this sculptural portrait. But according to the coins' portraits the braids worn by Otacilia generally reaches only to the rear of the cramium, it does not extend far onto the top of the head. Otacilia’s coin profiles, furthermore, show certain features such as a rounded, slack chin line which indicate that she may have been older, and certainly that she was plumper, than the subject of the portrait type in question. The most important divergence of Otacilia’s coin portraits from this work, however, is the overall shape of the head,
which tends to be rectangular, with a long, heavy face, and an elongated, flat line at the rear of the cranium. The subject of these sculptural portraits is clearly brachycephalic, with a rounded cranium the form of which is emphasized by the curve of
the braids.
Source: Wood S., “Subject and Artist: Studies in Roman Portraiture of the Third Century”
Marble sculpture
Head: ca. 245 AD – Bust: modern
Height 44 cm; height of the ancient part 26 cm.
Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Inv. 1914, no. 265