Roman Bronze Bust of an Empress / Julia Augusta

This small bronze bust of a Roman aristocratic woman, with her contemporary fashionable hair style, could, through the addition of a diadem to her head, possibly represent Livia Drusilla, later, Julia Augusta, following her marriage to Augustus, the first emperor of Rome. Although not contemporary to her own lifetime, this bust may have been produced following her deification by her grandson, the Emperor Claudius. The rendering of her face, with large almond eyes and protruding irises, is more typical of the works produced during his reign. The small holes in her neck could have been for her to be hung in a household shrine and honoured, all the more suggestive of this representation having ben produced following her deification. An important figure in Roman history, Augusta was to beget the first of the ruling Julian family, her son becoming the second emperor following Augustus, Tiberius