MODERN SCULPTURE

Stone sculpture; sandstone head. Orange-yellow fine-grained sandstone. Short hair, no fringe, cut around the ears, lumpy appearance as if thick and curly; there is a groove running from the front hairline just off-centre along the top of the head to the crown (possibly damage or meant to be a parting). Forehead has a bulge on the right and slopes downwards and inwards on the left. Simple oval eyes, now damaged, apparently originally undetailed. The nose is large, aqualine and broad and slopes to the right. The lips protrude slightly and have an upwardly curved groove between. The right cheek is high and swollen compared with the left. Small rounded chin. Simply moulded ears, the right is larger and slightly higher than the left. Rough rounded ball for neck (rounded on the base) set far back from the chin. The whole face has a twisted appearence (twisted upwards and to the right), and the lower face protrudes significantly. A deep circular hole is drilled on the right side of the head, above the ear (diameter 9mm, depth 41mm); a fragment of modern iron drill bit (diameter 3.4mm, length 25.4mm) adheres to the side of the hole in a shallow groove created by it (the drill bit became detached when soil cleared from hole). There is a nother shallow (5mm depth) drill hole on the right jaw-line. The head is roughly finished, apart from the face which is smoothed, and there are numerous areas of damage, for example a linear cut above the right ear, a groove at the corner of the right eye and a circular depression at the base of the right side of the head, many scratches; limescale around the lower back of the head. Height c.220mm, width (ear to ear) c.140mm, length/thickness (chin to back of head) c.250mm, chin to front of neck 130mm, chin to back of neck c.230mm, length of neck c.70mm. Unable to weigh (too heavy for scales).The stone is Bath sandstone according to a stone mason friend of the finder.John Billingsley (author of 'A Stony Gaze') writes: [this head] "screams out 'modern' to me. The highly charactered style, almost like a portrait from life, isn't 'classical' enough for Roman or for church sculpture...I wonder if it's intended as African. The mouth especially looks very modern. That high prominent treatment, also, is too high for an architectural feature in most locations I can think of - it would jut out from the wall, with a small area of contact with the wall, and would thus be a bit vulnerable, especially as, I'm guessing from its appearance, that the stone is relatively soft. In addition there are some finely incised lines - mouth, eyelids, fold beside the nose, hairline. Two of these - hairline and nose - are not features I've generally seen on archaic heads of any period. The lines look rather sharp, implying the head hasn't been in a weathering location. And also look to me like they've been done with a sharp chisel, and as they're in, as I'm assuming relatively soft sandstone, then if it was of some age, then there should be softening of those edges, even if it's been in the ground. Scratches on the nose look like a multi-toothed chisel, rather than damage. The rather haphazard drilled holes don't give me any cause to suspect an early date either... I've come across nothing like this of any age, and if I were pushed for an age I would say 19th century at the earliest, but I suspect it's 20th century, maybe 1920's, maybe later, and probably someone's practice piece at stone sculpture."