Provenance:
Private Collection (A. P.), Brussels, acquired between 1967-1969.
Art Loss Register nos. S00052398 & S00051522.

Note.
This limestone portrait head of a young woman is Hellenistic in date, and Cypriot in style. She has an idealized face articulated with small mouth and slightly open lips, smooth cheeks, almond-shaped eyes, and broad forehead. Her wavy hair is parted at the center, swept back to the ears, surmounted by a diadem, and covered in a long veil. She wears disk earrings with grape pendants—symbols of fertility. Traces of the originally painted pupils are preserved in the left eye. The soft surface, heavy-lidded eyes, and Venus rings along the neck impart a sensuous look to this elegant beauty. For a stylistically similar votive head at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Inv. no. 74.51.2812), see A. Hermary and J.R. Mertens, The Cesnola Collection of Cypriot Art: Stone Sculpture, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2014, p. 174-175, no. 212.