This limestone head has features that are commonly found on Greek sculptures carved about one hundred years earlier (during the Archaic period), such as almond-shaped eyes, face-framing ringlets, and a faint smile. It comes from the island of Cyprus, a major center for the exchange of goods and ideas throughout the ancient world. The sculptor may have visited Greece or otherwise known about the earlier Greek art that appears to have influenced this work.
Date
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H. F. M., “A Limestone Cypriote Head,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 20, 7 (October 1926), p. 99.
Art Institute of Chicago, “Accessions and Loans,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 20, 6 (September 1926), p. 85
Cornelius Vermeule, Art and Archeology of Antiquity, vol. III (London: Pindar Press, 2003), pp. 32-34.
Karen B. Alexander, “From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Karen Manchester, Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), p. 31.
University of Minnesota Gallery, Space in Sculpture, November 15-December 31, 1948.
Art Institute of Chicago, The Human Figure in Early Greek Art, A Preview Part I, Gallery 101A, September 1, 1988-September 24, 1989.
Art Institute of Chicago, Ancient Art Galleries, Gallery 155, April 20, 1994-February 6, 2012.
Art Institute of Chicago, Of Gods and Glamour: The Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Art, Gallery 151, November 11, 2012-September 13, 2016.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1926.
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