Roman Marble Bust of Empress Sabina

This marble bust represents Empress Sabina as a Roman matrona in traditional dress. She wears a tunic of thin fabric which gathers around her neck in many folds. Her shoulders are wrapped in a stola, a mantle of thicker fabric, shown with broad folds that cover the breast. The concept of modesty and purity is thus clearly expressed. The gaze is not direct and avoids the viewer as the head is turned to the side. The expression is calm and full of dignity, although one may decipher a feeling of melancholy and probably sadness.

Sabina is represented as a woman of youthful appearance. The skin of her face is smooth, while the delicate treatment of the marble reveals especially attractive dimples at the corners of her thin lips and soft, almost invisible transitions between the cheeks and the eyelids. The wide-open eyes and the flat forehead contrast with the elaborate hairstyle. It is believed that Sabina herself introduced the fashion of long braids arranged in a kind of turban on top of the head. The braids are carefully incised; the hairstyle has a distinctive decorative quality because of the symmetrical arrangement of four separate locks seen dressed from the nape and vertical rows of crescent-shaped curls in front of each ear.

Vibia Sabina was a very young girl when, after the death of her father, Lucius Vibius Sabinus, she was taken to live in the household of Emperor Trajan, the uncle of her mother, Salonina Matidia. At the request of Trajan’s wife, Pompeia Plotina, Sabina married Hadrian in 100 CE. Hadrian was then the adopted son of Trajan and succeeded him in 117 CE. The rumors were that Plotina was in love with Hadrian and was helpful later in securing his access to power. The family life of Hadrian and Sabina was not at all happy and even less exemplary as regards Roman standards. They did not have any children. Hadrian was away from home for several years visiting the provinces of the Empire. He dismissed two court officials (one was the famous biographer Suetonius) for being too close to Sabina; the word even spread that he had tried to poison her.

Despite obvious drama in her personal life, Sabina appeared according to her high social rank in several official images of Roman propaganda throughout the vast Empire. These images, which survive on coins, honorific statues and busts, were intended to demonstrate the virtues of the Roman matrona. The person of the empress was associated with the powers of the goddesses supporting and protecting the family. Sabina is shown in the guise of Venus Genetrix, Ceres, Juno, Vesta, Pudicitia, Pietas, Concordia and Indulgentia, accompanied by the title Augusta (Divine). Sabina was deified after her death in 136 CE.

No symbol or attribute of divinity appears on the bust. Sabina is represented here as herself, with much emphasis on her mood. As the irises and the pupils were originally indicated by incisions, this particularity puts the date of the bust still within Sabina’s lifetime (however, it is difficult to say whether the pupils were carved, or re-carved, later). Scholarly study recognizes three major types, which are based on the coin images and the hairstyles, among more than eighty surviving portraits of Sabina in marble. Our bust belongs to the first type which was probably created in a Greek workshop around 130 CE on the occasion of her visit to Greece in 128-129 CE. It was influenced by the Classical style which is reflected in the depiction of her face. The individual features of her physiognomy are smooth; in particular, the representation of the eyebrows is without any detailing, as was typical for Greek sculpture of the Classical period.

Very good state of preservation. Originally carved from a single block of marble. The head and the neck were broken from the bust and have been repaired. The neck consists of four reassembled fragments. The nose and the tip of the chin have been restored. The once carved pupils (seen on old photographs) have been filled with plaster. The lost left ear has been replaced in plaster. There are a few chips on the face (eyebrows, lower left eyelid, right cheekbone) and some losses from the edges of the drapery folds partially restored in marble. An original piece of the hairstyle has been reattached behind. The bust no longer has its cylindrical base, but the transitional plaque has survived.

Ex- Pietro Stettiner (1855-1920) collection, Rome, prior to 1912; (logged in the German Archaeological Institute photo library logbook in 1912 under Stettiner nos. 3064-3065)

Ex- François Olive (1932-2012) collection, Saint-Lys, France, acquired in the 1950s-1960s

Arachne Database, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Rome, nos. 3064-3065, accessioned in 1912 (central object database of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) and the Archaeological Institute of the University of Cologne, nos. 848635 and 850805) (http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/marbilderbestand/850805).

LIPPOLD G., ed., Photographische Einzelaufnahmen antiker Skulpturen, Serie XVIIB, Munich, 1947, no. 5078, illus.
ZANKER P. and FITTSCHEN K., Katalog der römischen Porträts in den Capitolinischen Museen und den anderen kommunalen Sammlungen der Stadt Rom, Mainz am Rhein, 1983, p. 62, d
MATHESON S.B., A Woman of Consequence, in Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin, 1992, pp. 89-90, figs. 4-5;

FITTSCHEN K., Courtly Portraits of Woman in the Era of the Adoptive Emperors (AD 98-180) and their Reception in Roman Society, in Kleiner D.E.E. and Matheson S.B. (eds.), I, Claudia: Woman in Ancient Rome, New Haven, 1996, p.48, note 71;
BROUCKE P.B.F.J., Catalogue entry no. 30: “Portrait of Avidia Plautia,” in Diana E.E Kleiner and Susan B. Matheson, eds., I, Claudia: Women in Ancient Rome, exh. Cat., New Haven, 1996, p. 74 and note 1
CHEVALIER L., Buste de l’impératrice Vibia Sabina, in Galerie Tarantino, Paris, 2011, pp. 60-66, no. 20.

Scottsdale Ferrari Art Week, Arizona, March 2025

On early photographs of the bust, see:
Arachne Database, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Rome, nos. 3064-3065, accessioned in 1912 (http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/marbilderbestand/850805).
On art collector Pietro Stettiner, see:
POLLAK L., Römische Memorien: Künstler, Kunstliebhaber und Gelehrte, 1893-1943, Rome, 1994, p. 152.
On portraits of Sabina, see:
ADEMBRI B., NICOLAI R.M., eds., Vibia Sabina: Da Augusta a Diva, Milan, 2007.
CARANDINI A., Vibia Sabina, Florence, 1969, pp. 151-153.
CHEVALIER L., Buste de l’impératrice Vibia Sabina, in Galerie Tarantino, Paris, 2011, pp. 60-66, no. 20.
DE KERSAUSON K., Catalogue des portraits romains (Musée du Louvre): Tome II, De l’année de la guerre civile (68-69 apr. J.-C.) à la fin de l’Empire, Paris, 1996, pp. 138-139, no. 56.
FITTSCHEN K., Courtly Portraits of Woman in the Era of the Adoptive Emperors (AD 98-180) and their Reception in Roman Society, in Kleiner D.E.E., Matheson S.B., eds., I, Claudia: Woman in Ancient Rome, New Haven, 1996, p. 48, note 71.
FITTSCHEN K., ZANKER P., Katalog der römischen Porträts in den Capitolinischen Museen und den anderen kommunalen Sammlungen der Stadt Rom, vol. III, Mainz am Rhine, 1983, p. 62.
MATHESON S.B., A Woman of Consequence, in Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin, 1992, pp. 89-90, figs. 4-5.
OPPER T., Sabina, in Hadrian: Empire and Conflict, London, 2008, pp. 188-205.
WEGNER M., UNGER R., Verzeichnis der Bildnisse von Hadrian und Sabina, in Boreas, 7, 1984, pp. 146-156.