An archivist at the Indianapolis Museum of Art recently ran across a Roman bust, and is intrigued by the provenance:

I discovered her by chance (luck, fate?) while foraging the museum’s endless object storage cabinets, recognizing first the elaborate hairstyle worn by the women of ancient Rome. There she was, gleaming out from an old box, still perfectly coiffed after two thousand years. And there too I was, smudgy and not so well-coiffed.

She was a gift of Hoosier author Booth Tarkington, notorious loather of modern art. To unearth such a piece is thrilling, but at the same time a little saddening, because there is very little chance of learning its origins prior to its donation in 1951. So far we have a few promising leads, which point to some prominent New York auction houses.

I advised Chelsey that “Tarkington probably picked this up while sojourning either in Rome or on Capri (1905). If you browse through his published letters in Your Amiable Uncle, you might even find a reference to this specific piece. He often commented on such purchases.”