Art and sculptures from Hadrian’s Villa: Head of a diademed goddess

This month’s sculpture from Hadrian’s Villa is a head of a goddess made of Pentelic marble. She is wearing a diadem in her wavy hair that is centrally parted and dressed in a chignon at the nape of her neck. It was found in a cryptoporticus near the circular temple dedicated to the Venus of Knidos.

The head of this female deity was made separately for insertion onto a larger-than-life-size body. The type is known from other copies of the Roman period deriving from a Greek, probably Attic, model in the severe style (470-460 BC).

This head is displayed at the National Roman Museum – Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome.