This splendidly edited volume presents a pair of two slightly more than life-size portraits of the imperial couple Septimius Severus and Julia Domna. They are carved from a white marble from Luni (Italy) or Göktepe, not far from Aphrodisias (Turkey), and preserved almost impeccably; some small chips are missing in the Severus as do both pedestals including the tabulae indicating their names. They are almost 65 cm high and, including the original stands, would reach some 75 cm, which equals two and a half Roman feet, apparently a standard format (relying on parallels, some of which are illustrated in the book). The museum director opens with a brief preface, followed by an introduction by the authors in Chapter 1. The second chapter contains long and thorough descriptions of the busts. No detailed data are given on the measurements of the parts, and there is no overview of all hitherto published observations, apart from an article by one of the greatest portrait experts, K. Fittschen, in the museum's 1978 bulletin (see p. 197 n. 26 for further references). Within the corpus of imperial portraits, the couple frequently occurs; maybe they remained preserved thanks to their quality and attractiveness. The survival of a set like this is less frequent. The peculiarity of the Bloomington busts is the combination of completeness, pairing and excellent quality.
The authors make clear that the couple has always been together (see Chapter 3 in greater detail): stylistically and conceptually they are equal (size, material, execution of face, mouth, eyes and folds of drapery), although the Severus displays a larger virtuosity in carving than the Julia. Not only the emperor's complicated hairdo, beard and moustache, but also the tunic and military cloak (paludamentum) are rendered in greater detail. Julia's wig is a ‘negative’ factor, being a rigid, schematically rendered voluminous swimming cap. It would not surprise me if it were a product of a wig specialist rather than carved by the talented sculptor of the busts.
Chapter 3 is about the making of the busts and starts with a brief section on the production of (white) marble for statuary and the technique of carving, chiselling and polishing. Van Voorhis's expertise as the author of an important study on the Aphrodisias sculptures (Aphrodisias X. The Sculptor's Workshop [2018]) comes to the fore. The busts show the ‘penultimate phase’ (p. 64), just before the application of colour. The meticulous analysis of the correspondences between the sculptures forms a sound argument to consider them as the work of one maker. Van Voorhis notes some differences and rightly sees them as part of the iconography and gender-based requirements. Yet, as said above, I would also stress some differences in virtuosity. Some remarks on the rationale of taking samples to analyse the marble explain the reason the museum had to carry out this invasive work: the researchers hoped to detect the provenance, namely either Luni or Aphrodisias; yet the latter is the more likely candidate (pp. 89; 168–75: report by S. Pike). But even then the busts were probably made in Rome (p. 89). Chapter 4 tries to reconstruct the ultimate state, that of fully coloured busts. Since the groundbreaking studies launched by V. Brinkmann in the early 2000s, more work has been carried out on this extremely important subject, which brings us nearer to the ancient world and the appreciation of art in that age. Co-author Abbe is a specialist in this field and explored the busts as early as 2018. In the museum's laboratory, scant (p. 100) yet undeniable traces of original pigments could be traced (see pp. 176–88: report by G.D. Smith), including Egyptian blue and organic pink. This combination served to render the purple cloaks of both busts. Julia has this – imperial – distinction in her quality as mater castrorum, a title underlining her importance in military and public affairs. Skin and hair do not possess ancient pigments and have been reconstructed virtually on the basis of the famous Berlin wooden tondo (see figs 4.24–5: overlays of the tondo's features on top of the Indiana faces). The result looks very convincing. Chapter 5 places the imperial couple and their busts into the wider context of the empire and imperial portraiture, on which matter see also S. Heijnen, Portraying change. The Representation of Roman Emperors in Freestanding Sculpture (ca. 50 bc – ca. 400 ad) (2022, Severus on p. 350, no. 1544, with bibl.). In this chapter a splendid bust of Severus’ co-emperor and rival Clodius Albinus in the same collection is presented (Heijnen, p. 348, no. 1528, with bibl.). It has the same size and was carved out of the same marble (p. 174): does it, consequently, stem from the same workshop? After a fine presentation of Severus’ numerous interventions in Rome, the portraits are tentatively connected with the Palatine (as did Fittschen) or a villa on the Esquiline. That Severus stems from northern Africa is seen as one of the reasons to adapt the Sarapis locks (pp. 43–4, 150; for some opposition, see Heijnen, Chapter 3, pp. 123–4), but great prudence is shown by the cautious observations on the lack of local features in both Severus and Julia (cf. the papers by L. Trentin and S.W. Bell, in: L.K. Cline and N.T. Elkins [edd.], The Oxford Handbook of Roman Imagery and Iconography [2022], pp. 405–63).
Chapter 6 explores the acquisition of the busts in 1975 (the Clodius Albinus bust entered the museum in 1962 as a Severus bust and was acquired from the same dealer, Jeannette G. Brun). The Chapter is called ‘Afterlives’, which implies a cultural biography. Of course, the sculptures’ lives remain for the greater part unknown. They might have remained ‘on show’ like the many portraits in the villa of Chiragan (France). The modern provenance, unfortunately, is not clear: Brun mentions Walter Bornheim as a previous dealer. The authors extensively describe his bad reputation as a dealer in Nazi times, but could not find any link to the busts in this respect nor in his post-war collections. Among the advisors consulted in the 1970s features the questionable former curator of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Jiri Frell, next to serious German scholars such as Fittschen. Frell's suggestion that the busts stem from excavations near or under the Baths of Diocletian could not be proven, so the mystery remains unsettled. Let us hope the statues will not suffer similar fortunes as some of the Klimt paintings in Vienna or the Kandinski from the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and be ‘revealed’ in the future as contaminated property with wrong provenances. The authors have done their utmost (and still work on it) to discover better information on the pedigree of these masterpieces.
This is a fine monograph on two splendid busts, now located in the broader context of Severan art and ideology. I noted the rather parsimonious annotation before and observe the lack of references for most comparanda as well as Bloomington pieces (e.g. the fine first-century female bust of fig. 2.25). It might be the aim of the book to be accessible to a wider public, but since the notes are collected at the end of the monograph, some more annotation would not have hampered reading, whereas scholars might gain more profit from the observations and proposals made.
