Inv. Scu 38
The female statue wears a thin tunic (chiton) and a mantle (himation) also covering the head. The right hand holding the spool and the left hand grasping the folders of the mantle are modern restorations.
The sculptural type derives from early Hellenistic models dating to the fourth century BC. In the Roman imperial period the type was usually adopted for portrait-statues featuring either empresses or private ladies; in the latter case statues of this kind were normally used in a funerary context.
The portrait of the Capitoline exemplar features a young lady; the hair is characterized by a roll above the forehead and two wavy bands to either side of it partially covering the ears. The coiffure finds precise parallels in portraits of Livia and dates the statue to the early Augustan age (20-10 BC).
In the late sixteenth century, the statue was placed in the Vatican Belvedere; in 1735 the statue was purchased for the Capitoline Museum by Alessandro Gregorio Capponi who acquired it from the Padri Carmelitani Scalzi’s church, of the Monte di Pietà.