Considered the embodiment of female beauty, the so-called Bartlett Head (named for an MFA donor) is one of the most famous works of Classical art in the United States. The delicate face and intricate, coquettish hairstyle have led to identification of the head as a representation of Aphrodite, although the goddess appears more girlish than in earlier representations. The hairstyle-held in place by two ribbon bands, with the locks over the forehead pulled up under the first band to form a bowlike topknot-is thought to echo that of antiquity's most celebrated statue of Aphrodite, and the first to show her fully nude, made by the leading Athenian sculptor Praxiteles for the city of Knidos in Asia Minor.

Praxiteles, whose career reached its peak from about 360 to 330 B.C., is credited as being the first Classical sculptor to exploit the special qualities of marble, rather than treating it as a substitute for the preferred material, bronze. The sketchy treatment of the hair, the soft polish of the skin, and the deliberately blurred sfumato (smoky) rendering of the facial features of this head typify the marble-working style he introduced-a manner particularly appropriate to a refined yet sultry female image.

Made of the finest sculptural marble from the Greek island of Paros, the Bartlett Head was carved separately for insertion into a full-length body fashioned from another piece of marble. With its tilting axes and eye-catching profiles, the head was conceived to be seen fully in the round and was carefully finished at the sides and back, as well as the front.

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