The Hermitage guide

The Hermitage has some first-class pieces belonging to the next phase in the development of Roman portrait sculpture, the Antonine period (A.D. 138—192). The most outstanding is the head of a woman, known to scholars as The Syrian Woman. Its value lies not only in its realism and brilliant workmanship but also in the way it reveals the subject’s inner world. The Syrian Woman is one of the earliest examples of a psychological portrait in the modern sense of the term. The bust of Lucius Verus (co-ruler with Marcus Aurelius, A.D. 161 — 169) is a most interesting example of a formal portrait. The original was made с. A.D. 168 after the Roman victory over the Parthians. Among the many imitations housed in museums in various parts of the world, the Hermitage bust occupies a special place owing to the virtuosity of the technique with which the marble is sculptured, and to its fine state of preservation.

The high technical standards achieved by the sculptors of the Antonine period, who were the first to make full use of the qualities inherent in marble as a medium, were continued by the sculptors of the Severan period (A.D. 193—235). The most subtle modelling of the surface, the smooth contours typical of that time, and the elaborate patterns of the coiffures all serve to convey the character of the subject and to give a poignant expression to the inner qualities of the personality, often negative ones not visible on the surface. Caracalla as a Boy is notable in this respect; it is quite amazing how the artist managed to penetrate so deeply the psychology of the child and to reveal so skilfully the qualities which later developed in the emperor who was to be remembered by posterity for his excesses. The superlative technical achievements of the Antonine period are still in evidence in the portrait bust of Balbinus (A.D. 238). But instead of the strictly structural modelling of the face, with its smooth surface, delicately worked over, here the forms are highly elusive due to the play of light and shade on the differently textured marble. This produces the effect of showing not so much the firm, already established traits of the man’s character as a succession of moods reflecting the complex nature of the old senator, philosopher and scholar, his innate joie de vivre, undermined by a growing awareness of his own helplessness as a statesman. This work is a masterpiece of the Roman psychological portrait at the time of its most brilliant flowering in the second quarter of the third century. No less remarkable, although belonging to a different artistic trend, is the almost contemporaneous bust of Emperor Philip the Arabian (A.D. 244—249) in which the expressive effect is achieved by broad rather than detailed modelling, by the accentuation of basic forms, and by the deliberately coarse and simplified treatment of the marble. Only a more careful examination can reveal the complexity of character which is not seen at first glance. This is a superb example of the new type of official portrait that arose during the period of the crisis of the principate as a political institution.

The art of the fourth century is represented in the Hermitage by a single but superb portrait that the Soviet scholar A. Voshchinina believed to depict Flavia Julia Constantia, wife of the Emperor Licinius (A.D. 308—324). Iconographie analysis enables the experts to date the portrait within a decade, since it is known that Licinius married the sister of Constantine the Great in A.D. 313. This work concludes the gallery of Roman portraits in the Hermitage.

The Hermitage collection of classical bronzes consists primarily of statuettes, household utensils, and horse trappings from the barrows of the northern Black Sea coast area. The collection contains but a few isolated specimens of monumental sculpture, of which the most outstanding is undoubtedly Portrait of a Man.

Archaic Greek bronzes are represented by several works only. Worthy of special note are a votive statuette of a youth bearing the inscription of the Samian tyrant Polykrates, a sphinx from Peloponnesus, and a figure of a youth that once served as the handle of an Attic vase. These figures, coining as they do from different centres, to some extent compensate for the gap in the collection of Greek sculpture, which contains practically no Attic models.