The Female Portrait Statue in the Greek World (review)

One of the biggest difficulties in the study of Greek sculpture is the lack of context for much of the statuary. The lack of knowledge regarding the location, display, patron, viewer or even subject matter of a statue severely limits the questions that can be posed. As a result, traditional scholarship has revolved around issues of chronology, typology and stylistic development. The fragmentary nature of the evidence for female portrait statues has limited even these avenues of research. As a result, female portraits have been largely neglected in favour of the more accessible and familiar male portrait statue, the study of which focuses primarily on physiognomic development. The attention paid to male portraits, and the concomitant neglect of female ones, leads to the perpetuation of two problems within the study of portraiture in particular, and sculpture in general. The first is the focus on internal evidence, such as stylistic development, which often leads to circular argumentation surrounding chronology. The second problem is that the more complex and less documented evidence regarding women is relegated to a lesser position next to the better-understood evidence for men. The result is a further silencing of already largely silenced female voices from the Greek world. Dillon's book is a very welcome correction to both these problems, and the value of her book goes well beyond her stated topic.

In her introduction Dillon lays out the problems of studying portrait statuary created by the lack of context. Instead of avoiding the question of context, however, she chooses this as the focus of her study. She proposes to explore this question by studying not just full statues or portrait heads, but by thoroughly examining all three parts of the portrait independently; that is, base (including inscription), draped body, and head. Few portraits have two, let alone three, of these parts intact. This, however, does not deter Dillon. Through separate studies of a wide cross-section of all three parts of the portrait, she is able to identify patterns that can be applied to the idea of the portrait as a whole, and thereby to present a more complete account of the context and the role of the female portrait statue than has previously been possible.

Chapter 1 examines the statue bases. Epigraphic evidence found on the bases provides external evidence for dating and indications of context. Dillon first examines the information found in the inscription, particularly regarding the identification of the image and the circumstances surrounding the dedication of the statue. She then discusses the bases themselves and how they work in conjunction with the statue(s) they supported. This is a concise description of technique, explained clearly enough for the layperson to understand, but informative enough to be useful to experts. Using the epigraphic evidence she divides the dedications into groups, exploring the various circumstances under which a woman could have a portrait dedicated in her honour. The chapter concludes with a brief chronology of the evidence from the late fourth century through the Hellenistic period.

Dillon explores the portrait body in Chapter 2. In selecting her evidence, the author again makes a concerted effort to provide external evidence for statue identification, since not every draped female body is necessarily a portrait. She then divides the statues into six groups, based broadly on gesture: three groups with "open or active poses" and three with "closed or covering poses". Within this broader context, Dillon skilfully describes the variations of gesture, clothing and colour that turn seemingly homogenous bodies into distinctive and varied images. It is in these details, Dillon argues, that the individualized nature of the portrait appears.

Chapter 3 turns to the portrait face. One of the difficulties of interpretation with an unattached (or even attached) female head is making the distinction between mortal and divine. This uncertainty has in large part resulted in the neglect of these heads or, at least, of their interpretation as something other than portraits. Dillon examines a number...