Commentary Prepared by Dr. Julia Lenaghan, Ashmolean Museum

C 090
Herm Bust of an Amazon from the Villa of the Papyri. Naples

Bronze
Herm Bust
53 cm

From Herculaneum. Found in the Villa of the Papiri in the small peristyle as a pendant to the herm bust of Doryphoros.
Italy, Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, 4889

Preservation:
The herm bust is very well preserved. Only the eyes, once filled with glass, have been restored.

Description:
The herm bust depicts a female head that turns to the right. The head has long wavy hair that is pulled back from the face and rolled up at the nape. The hair is parted from the crown to the brow at the center and regular waves of hair fall from the parting. The foremost locks fringe the brow in a scalloped manner and are almost perfectly symmetrical on either of the part. They move initially downwards, then over to the sides, then slightly upwards, and then the pattern repeats itself. Thus, over the outer corner of the eye are two small peaks. The hair covers the ears. Directly over the it follows a more direct backward path and behind the ears it is pulled up and rolled into itself in such a way that it does not fall down. This creates a band of hair behind the ears that is distinct from the hair which falls down from the crown. All the locks are rendered as thin and separate. Around the ears they are particularly interwoven and build in volume. Viewed as a whole the individual locks combine to give a rich texture to the head. The face has a full oval shape. The brow is broad and rectangular. The eyebrows are virtually horizontal with a small rise over the outer portion of the eye. The eyes are large and are given a particular oblong shape by the asymmetry of the upper and lower lids. The upper lid reaches its highest point near the inner portion of the eye. The lower line of the upper lid continues past the intersection with the lower lid. The lower lid reaches its lowest point at outer portion of the eye. The nose is straight, long, and features no dip. The mouth, directly under the nose, is small from side to side. The lips, however, are full and tall from top to bottom. The upper lip features a dip at the center and there is a modeled concavity between the center of the lip and the nose. The lower lip is especially rounded and projects out. The cheeks are long and full and end in a strong solid chin.

Discussion:
This herm bust was found in the Villa of the Papiri in a pendant position to the famous herm bust of the Doryphoros (cat. C 34). Because of the resemblance of its hairstyle to sculptural depictions of amazons and because the Doryphoros is often thought to represent Achilles, this head has been identified as an amazon, possibly Penthesilea. The head type is known in one other copy, a fine marble head from Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli (now Rome, Museo Nazionale 124666) (generally considered to be the finer copy). Also, the caryatid from Herodes Atticus’ Villa in Loukou, which is often associated with the headless “Mattei Amazon” type (cat. C 89), shows a great resemblance to the head. Because of the identification of the head type as an amazon, Pliny’s account (see cat. C 86, 87, and 89) of the competition of ancient sculptors to create a statue of an amazon is the basis for scholarly interpretations of the herm. The most generally repeated comment about the head type belongs to Furtwangler. He proposed that this “Herculaneum-Tivoli” head type represents the head of the amazon of Pheidias and belongs on the “Mattei Amazon” body type. Three facts account for this assessment. The first of these is that the head type stylistically belongs to the mid-fifth century BC. Furtwangler and others following him have compared it to the head (“Palagi” type) of the so-called Athena Lemnia which he deemed to be by Pheidias. There is certainly a resemblance between the handling of the hair of these two works but the attribution of the “Palagi” head type to the Lemnian Athena should be considered highly doubtful. Perhaps more closely related to the “Herculaneum-Tivoli” type are the heads of the Medici Athena, which is generally attributed to Pheidias, and the Hertz head, believed by Harrison to reproduce the head of the Nike of the Athena Parthenos. In addition, according to the characters in Lucian (Eikones 6), the Pheidian amazon provided the mouth and neck for their construction of the most beautiful woman (????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????. Since the mouth of the Herculaneum herm is particularly pronounced the comment seemed appropriate. Thus, although the “Herculaneum-Tivoli” head type cannot be ascribed with certainty to any master, an association to Pheidias is plausible. The second fact is that the head of the Loukou caryatid resembles this “Herculaneum-Tivoli” head type more than any other amazon head type. The Loukou caryatid features a pronounced central part and strongly accented wavy locks that move horizontally away from the part to the sides of the head in a series of dips and rises. The broad rectangular form of the forehead and the fundamental structure and proportions of the face are also similar. It seems likely that the Loukou caryatid draws upon the same model as the “Herculaneum-Tivoli” head type. Third, we have three well known amazon body types (the “Sciarra/Lansdowne/Berlin Amazon”, the “Capitoline”, and the “Mattei”) of which one, the “Mattei Amazon” type (C 89), lacks a clearly associated head type. Moreover, the “Mattei” type vaguely resembles the Loukou caryatid and a headless example of the “Mattei” type was found at Tivoli. Becatti had a cast made of the Herculaneum head on the Mattei body. The result was not entirely convincing and this was not merely the result of the disputed turn of the head (see cat. C 89). The juxtaposition of the heavy full sensation of the head with the thin fine material of the chiton and the long body seemed incongruous. The cast has created doubt among scholars. Harrison has proposed another interpretation of the head. She agreed that it appeared to be the work of Pheidias and that it resembled the head of the Loukou caryatid. She strongly disagrees, however, that the Loukou caryatid represents the “Mattei Amazon”. The drapery patterns, the manner in which the chiton is worn, and the inclination of the upper body are entirely different. Also the Loukou caryatid cannot be wounded on the left thigh since the left thigh is covered. She points out that the Lucian (Eikones 4) specifies the amazon of Pheidias as leaning on a ??????????the diminutive of spear. Since the “Capitoline Amazon” is also leaning on a spear, Lucian’s distinction must concern the type of spear. According to Harrison the Loukou amazon appears to be leaning on the left side on a shorter spear which would have served the function of a crutch. She compares the hanging drapery and the leftward lean of the Loukou caryatid to the figures in the Parthenon South Metopes 10, 12, and 21. Consequently she believes that the Loukou caryatid reproduces the Amazon of Pheidias, the head of which is represented by the “Herculaneum-Tivoli” type, and the body of which is preserved in no other depictions. Bol in a catalogue entry of the Tivoli head also makes a new proposal. Her proposal, however, is influenced by her belief that the “Sciarra/Lansdowne/Berlin Amazon” is by Polykleitos. She first disassociates the “Herculaneum-Tivoli” head type with the “Mattei Amazon” body type because the head is too powerful for the slim graceful body. She also denies any association of the head type to the Loukou caryatid. She argues that the organization of the waves of hair have no correspondence to the “Herculaneum-Tivoli” type. She suggests instead that the “Herculaneum-Tivoli” type is a reinterpretation of the “Sciarra/Lansdowne/Berlin Amazon” that gives it aspects of a more severe style. In support of this, she pointed out that in the Villa of the Papiri, the “Herculaneum-Tivoli” type amazon was to be understood as a pendant to Polykleitos’ Doryphoros and they should naturally be by the same artist. Bol’s argument is exceptionally difficult to accept given the lack of resemblance of the “Herculaneum-Tivoli” type to the “Sciarra/Lansdowne/Berlin Amazon”, the entirely fifth century aspect of the “Herculaneum-Tivoli” type, and the Loukou caryatid’s resemblance to the “Herculaneum-Tivoli” type. Moreover, that the head type was paired with the Doryphoros in the Villa of the Papyri is not relevant to the name of the artist. Furtwangler’s argument logically has more sense. The difficulty about the Loukou pillar’s lack of strict adherence to the “Mattei Amazon” body type might be passed over by accepting the caryatid as a variation. The problem of the forceful head on the graceful body might be dismissed as subjective. Harrison’s proposal, which invents another amazon type, solves the problems of Furtwangler’s argument but leaves us to wonder why the body of the Pheidian amazon was not copied and forces us to accept that three amazon types that we know today are not those made by the first three artists mentioned by Pliny. Harrison herself answers the first of these problems by suggesting that the heavy Pheidian drapery was dull and the movement of the body less exciting than the drapery and motion of other amazons. That the three best known amazon types do not necessarily correspond to the top three artists of Pliny’s account, which has already been seriously questioned, is not a serious flaw; it may reflect a change in taste or be the result of an error in Pliny’s account.

Bibliography:
G. Becatti, Problemi Fidiaci (Florence 1951) pp.192-193 pl.90 figs.283-284 cast of the Herculaneum head on the “Mattei” body type
D. Pandermalis, "Statuenausstattung in der Villa dei Papiri" (AM 86 1971) pp.184-185 description of find spot
E. Harrison, "Two Pheidian Heads: Nike and Amazon" The Eye of Greece: Studies in the Art of Athens (Cambridge 1982) pp.65-70 considers the head to be work of ca. 440 BC and to represent head of Pheidian Amazon
M. Wojcik, La Villa dei Papiri ad Ercolano: Contributo alla ricostruzione dell'ideologia della "nobilitas" tardo republicana (Rome 1986) pp.173-175 G2, pp.192-194 notes on finds spot, considers the head to be a poor copy
, Le Collezioni del Museo Nazionale di Napoli I,2 (Rome 1989) pp.136-137 no.196 catalogue entry, asserts that it is the head of the "Mattei Amazon" type
R. Bol, "Die Amazone des Polyklet" Polyklet: Der Bildhauer der griechischen Klassik (Mainz am Rhein 1990) pp.584-585 no.102 argues that head type is a variation based on the head of the “Sciarra/Lansdowne/Berlin Amazon” which she believes to be by Polykleitos
Bronze
Herm Bust