Commentary Prepared by Dr. Julia Lenaghan, Ashmolean Museum
C 249
Palagi Head, associated with the Athena Lemnia. Bologna
Marble
Head
43 cm
The head was acquired by the painter Palagi from a Venetian dealer in the 1830s. The Venetian dealer is thought to have procured his pieces from Greece.
Italy, Bologna, Museo Civico, G1060
Roman work based on an original statue probably dating to the mid fifth century (ca. 450 BC)
Preservation:The inset eyes are now missing. Prior to a cleaning in 1921 the head had appeared black. This perhaps is the reason that the cast was painted black. There are no restorations.
Description:The head features short voluminous wavy hair that is parted in the center. It is pressed against the head by a broad fillet which runs around the head just above the ears and is knotted at the back. Below and above the fillet the hair springs out. The hair is combed off the face and pulled back. It crosses the brow in a gentle arch between the temples and leaves the ears almost entirely uncovered. The individual locks are distinct and intertwined. A few distinct small locks appear on the face in front of the ear and on the nape of the neck. Behind the right ear, the curl of one lock is punctuated with a small drill hole.
The face is slender with tight cheeks that continue and connect harmoniously in the smooth line of the small chin; that is, the cheeks taper. The brow is low and the eyebrows are virtually horizontal. The eyes are oval and symmetrical and have small lids. The nose is straight without any dip at the bridge and has a broad flat ridge. Between the nose and the lips is a tear-shaped depression which is sharply delineated. The lips are short from side to side but full and shapely. The corners are drilled. The groove between the lips moves (from right to left) up, down, up, and down. This gives the upper lip a central overhang.
Discussion:The Palagi head type is known in a total of six replicas, none of which is assuredly preserved with a body. The six replicas are the namesake in Bologna, the lower part of the head currently attached to a statue of Athena in Dresden (cf. cat. C 75), a head in the Ashmolean, one in the Royal Ontario Museum, a fragment in the Vatican Galleria delle Statue (inv.569), and a head found recently in Pozzuoli. A head in the Villa Albani collection is also related. Whether the fragmentary head in Dresden belonged originally to the statue on which it now sits is the subject of much controversy; this is discussed fully in the entry on the Athena Lemnia (cat. C 75).
The boyish nature of the head, its short hair and slim face, led to confusion over its gender. Conze initially identified it initially as the portrait of a young male and another Italian scholar recognized it to be an amazon. Because the head type had been thought to be male, the copy of the head which sat on the Dresden statue of Athena was removed.
Furtwangler then decided on the basis of gems that showed a short haired Athena who held her helmet in her hand and wore a diagonal aegis that the copy of the head in Dresden did belong on the statue of Athena with which it had been bought. After examination, he pronounced that the head fit break to break on that body. Lamer, examining the same join, pointed out that there was actually only a small central area of the neck where the head and body joined flawlessly. Hartswick reviewed the break and decided that the patch where the two pieces fit might be the work of a post-Classical restorer.
It is undeniable that the neck of the Dresden statue has been cut back and that the head appears too small. Moreover, the Palagi head itself with its deep plug cannot be reintegrated with any of the extant copies of the Dresden Athena body type. The pertinence of the Palagi head type to that statue type is certainly not secure. Although the turn of the Palagi head and its iconography of the head would be appropriate for the Dresden statue of Athena, the recently discovered copy of the Palagai type from Pozzuoli does not feature a distinct turn of the head.
Hartswick has gone so far as to assert that the original of the “Palagi” head type is not even Classical in date. He compares the head to the head of the bronze camillus in the Palazzo Conservatori collection. The head of this Roman bronze male figure features the same hairstyle and same facial structure as the Palagi head. He also introduces the “Antinous Mondragone” into the discussion. The “Antinous Mondragone” resembles the the Palagi head in the rendering of the eyes, the mouth, particularly the depression above the upper lip, and the hair over the brow as well as in the shape of the head. Previous scholars, particularly Furtwangler had seen this similarity and used it as evidence that the Romans adapted 5th century prototypes to create ideal statuary. Hartswick interprets the similarity as evidence that the Palagi head in not classical at all but is, like the “Antinous Mondragone” a Roman creation.
Hartswick’s argument was countered by Palagia who attempted to show that the head type was appropriate for a fifth century Athena type. Palagia pointed once more to the gems (which Hartswick had dismissed as post-Classical) and to a fourth century relief and a late fifth century small statue that depicted a helmetless Athena and surely derived from an earlier fifth century prototype.
Meyer re-addressed the problematic head and its problematic body type. He concluded that the head was fifth century and that it was likely to be that of the Athena Lemnia but that it did not go on the Dresden Athena body type. He recognized an Athena type that featured an aegis worn in an “X” shaped pattern across the chest as the appropriate body for the Palagi head. This recognition was based on a relief from Albania. On this relief a short haired helmetless Athena appears wearing an aegis in an “X” pattern. The date of this relief, however, is not certain and the head is of a small size and can only be said to be generally similar to the Palagi head.
In conclusion, there is evidence for statues of Athena without a helmet in the fifth century. Evidence for Athena with short hair like that of the Palagi head is slightly less clear. The gems that show Athena as she appears in the Palagi head are difficult to date. The fourth century relief mentioned by Palagia does not preserve the head clearly; the relief discussed by Meyer from Albania is not securely dated; and the late fifth century small statue from the Akropolis mentioned by Palagia has long hair. The similarity of the Palagi head with Roman works, however, gives strong proof for neither one argument nor the other. Either Roman period taste influenced the copyist’s rendition or the copyist was rendering a Roman period creation. Equally unclear is whether the head belongs to the Dresden body type. There is no secure proof for it and therefore, might best be only loosely associated with the body.
Bibliography:G. Gualandi,
"La collezione greca" Palagio Palagi: Artista e collezionista (Bologna 1976) pp.236 and 247-248
catalogue entry, head acquired from Venetian art dealersB. S. Ridgway,
Fifth Century Styles in Greek Sculpture (Princeton 1981) pp.170-171
finds Palagi head to be too late looking for the Lemnia and believes that it is too small for the Dresden statueK. Hartswick,
"The Athena Lemnia Reconsidered" (AJA 87 1983) pp.335-346
believes the Palagi head type to be a classicizing Roman invention(F. Canciani),
"Athena/Minerva" Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae II (Zurich 1984) p.1084 no.141 a
B. S. Ridgway,
Roman Copies of Greek Sculpture (Ann Arbor 1984) p.53 footnote 26
endorses the opinion of HartswickH. Protzmann,
"Antiquarische Nachlese zu den Statuen der sogenannten Lemnia Furtwanglers in Dresden" Jahrbuch der Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden (16 1984) pp.7-18
believes that the Dresden copy of the Palagi head type belongs on the Dresden Athena body type, shows that the Dresden copy and the Palagi head have the same measurements,
Apollon und Athena: Klassische Gotterstatuen in Abgussen und Rekonstruktionem (Kassel 1991) pp.167-169 no.35
H. Meyer,
"Athena Lemnia (Typus Fier-Berlin-Richmond). Zur Identifizierung des meistgeruhmten phidiasischen Werkes und seiner Uberlieferung" Kosmos. Festschrift fur Thuri Lorenz zum 65 Geburtstag (Vienna 1997) pp.111-117
believes the “real” Athena Lemnia was composed of the Palagi head and an Athena with criss-cross aegis as shown in a relief from Fier and a statue from PergamonC. Gialanella (ed.),
Nova Antiqua Phlegraea (Naples 2000) pp.26-27
publishes a new head of the Palagi type, considers the Palagi head to be a more faithful copy of the original
