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Head of Aphrodite ("The Bartlett Head" )

Greek
Early Hellenistic Period
about 330–300 B.C.
Place of Manufacture: Greece, Attica, Athens

Medium/Technique Parian marble
Dimensions Head without socle: 28.8 x 18.1 x 24.8 cm (11 5/16 x 7 1/8 x 9 3/4 in.)
Head on socle: 42 cm (16 9/16 in)
Historic socle: 13.8 x 13.8 cm (5 7/16 x 5 7/16 in.)
Credit Line Bartlett Collection—Museum purchase with funds from the Francis Bartlett Donation of 1900
Accession Number03.743
ClassificationsSculpture
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.

Catalogue Raisonné Sculpture in Stone (MFA), no. 055; Sculpture in Stone and Bronze (MFA), p. 108 (additional published references); Highlights: Classical Art (MFA), p. 086.
DescriptionSo-called Bartlett Head of Aphrodite, associated with the style of Praxiteles. Important and rare original example of late Classical or early Hellenistic sculpture. Neck is worked for insertion into a full length statue, now lost. Well preserved except for a small break at the tip of the nose.
ProvenanceSaid to have been found during repairs on a hotel, opposite the Monastiraki Station in Athens, Greece [see note 1]. Possibly, Mr. Pallis, Athens [see note 2]. By 1903, Edward Perry Warren (b. 1860 - d. 1928), London; 1903, sold by Warren to the MFA. (Accession date: March 24, 1903)
NOTES:
[1] According to Warren’s records.
[2] According to L. D. Caskey, Catalogue of Greek and Roman Sculpture in the Museum of Fine Arts (1925), no. 28.

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