The Female Portrait in Greek Art and Society

FAIN: FA-51869-05

Sheila Dillon
Duke University (Durham, NC 27705-4677)

This project examines the place of the female portrait in Greek art and society. While portrait statues of women were a major component of Greek sculptural production, they are oddly underrepresented in our histories of Greek art. This scholarly neglect is probably due to the fact that female portraits are visually very homogeneous, with little physiognomic individuality. In a genre where realism is especially prized, these images fall far short of modern expectations of portrait likeness. This study aims to recuperate these images for the history of Greek portraiture, and to explore such broader issues as the historical contingencies of likeness, and the relationship of gender, identity, and portrait appearance.

Media Coverage

(Review)
Author(s): Peter Thonemann
Publication: Times Literary Supplement
Date: 11/18/2010

(Review)
Author(s): C. Daniel-Hughes
Publication: Bryn Mawr Classcial Review
Date: 9/28/2010
URL: http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2010/2010-07-55.html

(Review)
Author(s): Peter Schultz
Publication: American Journal of Archaeology
Date: 4/15/2011
URL: http://www.ajaonline.org/online-review-book/897

(Review)
Author(s): A. Surtees
Publication: Mouseion 54 (2010) 305-307
Date: 7/20/2016

(Review)
Author(s): Peter Schultz
Publication: American Journal of Archaeology 115.2.2011, on-line review
Date: 7/20/2016

(Review)
Author(s): C. Vout
Publication: Perspective. Actualités de la recherche en histoire de l'art. La revue de l'INHA (2010-2011) 277
Date: 7/20/2016

(Review)
Author(s): M. Mathys
Publication: Museum Helveticum 68.1 (2011) 102
Date: 7/20/2016

(Review)
Author(s): I. Leventi
Publication: Histara les comptes rendus 2011-06-22, on-line review
Date: 7/20/2016

(Review)
Author(s): C. Keesling
Publication: Classical Review 61 (2011) 597-98
Date: 7/20/2016

(Review)
Author(s): L. Olszewski
Publication: Eos. Commentarii Societatis Philologae Polonorum 98 (2011) 116-19
Date: 7/20/2016

(Review)
Author(s): F. van Keuren
Publication: New England Classical Journal 39 (2102) 76-78
Date: 7/20/2016

Associated Products

The Female Portrait Statue in the Greek World (Book)
Title: The Female Portrait Statue in the Greek World
Author: Sheila Dillon
Abstract: In this book, Sheila Dillon offers the first detailed analysis of the full range of evidence for female portrait statues in Greek art. A major component of Greek sculptural production, particularly in the Hellenistic period, female portrait statues are mostly missing from our histories of Greek portraiture. Whereas male portraits tend to stress their subject’s distinctiveness through physiognomic individuality, portraits of women are more visually homogeneous. In defining their subjects according to normative ideals of beauty rather than notions of corporeal individuality, Dillon argues that Greek portraits of women work differently than those of men and must be approached with different expectations. She examines the historical phenomenon of the commemoration of women in portrait statues from the fourth century to the first centuries BCE and traces the continued use of the idealizing, “non-portrait” style into the Roman period at a select number of sites.
Year: 2010
Primary URL: http://www.cambridge.org/us/knowledge/isbn/item6587981/?site_locale=en_US
Primary URL Description: Cambridge University Press website; published in hardcover in 2010; published in paperback in 2011
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 978-1-107-6036
Copy sent to NEH?: No

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