Art of the Ancient World. Ongoing. At the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts.

Art of the Ancient World.  Ongoing.  At the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts.

This idealized female head, said to have been found at Memphis in Egypt, leaves it unclear who is represented. The flawless features and loosely fastened, undulating hair, are appropriate for a goddess such as Artemis or Aphrodite; the style may show the influence of Skopas, one of the leading Greek sculptors of the fourth century. Yet the head also bears a marked resemblance-especially the long, delicate nose-to portraits of Arsinoë II, queen of Egypt in the 270s B.C.; the ribbon in her hair could be a diadem, signature headgear of later Greek royalty. Image courtesy of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
The Boston Museum of Fine Arts is home to one of the world’s premiere encyclopedic collections of antiquities, featuring more than 85,000 works of art from Egypt, Nubia, the Near East, Greece, Italy, Cyprus, and Anatolia. These works range in date from about 6500 BCE to 600 CE and include diverse media—sculpture, jewelry, coffins, mummies, coins, weapons, architecture, vases, carved gems, musical instruments, and mosaics. Special strengths of the collection are Old Kingdom Egyptian art, Nubian art of all periods, Greek vases, Classical coins and gems, and Roman funerary art and imperial portraiture.

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