Minatia Polla

Marble Bust Portrait of a Woman, after the Roman Original Minatia Polla discovered in 1880.
Italy, after 1880

Height: 46.5 cms (18.3 ins)
Width: 23.5 cms (9.2 ins)
Depth: 20 cms (8 ins)
Diameter of base: 16 cms (6.3 ins)

Roman marble portrait after the antique; the so-called Minatia Polla now in the National Museum (Terme), Rome. Discovered in 1880 at the tomb of C. Sulpicius Platorinus in Rome. A cinerary urn found in the tomb included the inscription to a young girl (“Minatiae Pollae; CIL 6.31763). It is from this burial that the portrait has received its popular name.

Dated to ca. A.D. 40, thus of the Julio-Claudian period.

“…ultimi anni di Tiberio o in quelli di Caligula, fra il 35 e il 40 d.C.”: Catalog of the Museo Nazionale Romano, I,1 (Rome 1979): 289.

Height ca. 35 cm.

Museum inventory 1043.

U2009.2675.