Well it’s the season of ‘la battue’ in the forests behind my house in Eastern France, with weekends full of hopeful orange roly-poly men harassing the local dwindling population of puny wild boar. And impinging upon my meditative walks. Not a fan. But I am intrigued by this late 4th century B.C. sarcophagus from the
This is one fascinating gentleman, in several respects. He is a plaster Roman overcast of one of the most famous sculptural groups from Classical Athens: the Tyrannicides. The original bronze group hailed from 477 B.C. Athens, sculpted by the greats Kritios and Nesiotes to commemorate an important (and likely fictionalized and pretty juicy) moment in
Ah, Persephone and Hades…the unhappiest of divine couples, but one of the most important. Perhaps you know the myth: Hades (god of the underworld) spied the nubile maiden frolicking in a blooming meadow with her friends, and took it upon himself to forcibly abduct her to his frigid domain. Demeter (Persephone’s goddess mother) fell into
Ok, I’ll admit it…I have a tendency to poopoo South Italian vase painting, dismissing it as the sloppy, derivative cousin of Attic. But when it’s good it’s really good and this is an absolute treasure – the fragment of a large skyphos attributed to the Palermo Painter. Zeus is at his most regal here, seated
Naked as a jaybird apart from a choker necklace and baldric over one shoulder, this mirror handle is an utter oddity of the late 6th century B.C. – bucking the convention of demurely draped females that persisted until famous sculptural innovations two centuries later. She holds a pomegranate in one hand, but perhaps more telling
While it might not be the most thrilling fragment aesthetically (the surface is a bit worn and the painter not necessarily top tier), I love this black-figure survivor because it shows the very best of the frequently weird Greek mythological birth stories. Zeus’ extramarital proclivities are well known, and his dalliance with Metis (a nymph
Dozens of these terracotta figurines were found in 1898 during excavations of the sanctuary of Demeter in Priene, leading to consternation on the part of German archaeologists there and some fun theories as to their cultic function…. Worshipful belly dancing, anyone? This one was found in Samos (not so far away) because although fragmentary I
Captured in this sliver of a cup’s tondo is an athletically inclined gentleman in an ungainly squat. I say athletically not for his admirable bendiness, but because of that floppy stippled thing near his left knee. It’s certainly a sponge, one of the three basic accoutrements of post-athletic male hygiene, but shown far less than
This is perhaps my favourite vase (largely fragmentary, only about 20% of the big krater remains) and unfortunately one I’ve never seen in person. Euphronios’ special way of rendering the body and lining up a successful composition is clear, even in this extreme close up of the ne’er-do-well Kyknos as he lies dying on the
This fellow was found in a pit, during 1958 archaeological investigations in the Sanctuary of Hera at Samos. He is fairly small (just over 14 cm tall) but the ivory is beautifully preserved in the island’s boggy soil, preserving beguiling traces that are not terribly easy to pinpoint on any one culture. The style seems
After the Bacchic frenzy comes the crash, apparently. The sleeping woman here is beautiful in her slumber – her face a study of strong, peaceful features (rounded chin, straight nose, and best of all those carefully outlined lips) beneath fanned out curls. Her weary head rests on a pile of fancy cushions – a sure
Europe is gripped in a late-summer heatwave, and the air is alive with the sounds of amorous insects. Which brought to mind this extraordinary gem now at the Getty, showing a grasshopper balancing on a blade of grass. The stone is a striking mottled jasper, with those golden splotches somehow evocative of sun-drenched days. The
The photo might be less than thrilling (vases are hard!) but this is a seriously cool little lekythos in Taranto, with the sole decoration consisting of a woman gazing out from a window, her head and face nearly completely veiled (apart from some unruly blond curls). Veiling in Classical Greece and the extent to which
This is a most extraordinary scene in hammered bronze sheet showing a warrior stepping into his chariot en route to the battlefield. He turns to gaze back at the woman and young child on her shoulders. I can’t resist (a little self-indulgent) ‘reading’ the scene as a condensed illustration Hector’s famous farewell in book 6
The propitiously preserved part of a tall, slender grave stele, this head at the Met is one of my favorites. The relief is very low, but somehow the sculptor has managed to really nail the sense of volume: the planes of the cheeks and brow, the ornate ear and that terrific hair. I’m particularly interested
Fragments of two separate cups in white-ground were found in the grand sanctuary to Demeter at Eleusis and this one is small but it’s a stunner. With that jutting beard and imperious bearing, the man painted in the interior could be any number of gods or heroes save for the scales that begin under his
Misleading photo alert! Because what I woke up thinking of left precious few archaeological traces, of which these dozens of assorted bronze figurines and remnants of vessels are tangible exceptions….And that is the monumental ash altar (active and growing for centuries) standing near the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. Olympia was a crucially important religious
Straight pins (this is an especially sumptuous Hellenistic example) were functional (primarily for securing swathes of cloth: think the feminine peplos) and frequently very beautiful. But when ogling them a few Greek vignettes highlighting their dangerous stabbing potential inevitably creep into my mind… Herodotus recounts a typical spat between city-states during which the Athenians launched
Odysseus was at his bravest and most wily when orchestrating his comrades’ grand escape from the cave of the dread Cyclops Polyphemus. After knocking him out with strong wine (a dirty trick) and blinding him with a heated and pointy branch, he tied the giant’s fleecy sheep together in threes with a Greek strapped to
Stark and stylized and utterly exposed, this little marble plaque is something of an oddity, but an oddity with a fun find-spot and somewhat helpful inscription. Female nether parts are shown – what’s the delicate term these days? Maybe one should stick to the Latin ‘pudenda’ (‘shameful parts’), but it seems a bit judgy. It
This is not the easiest vase to photograph or glimpse in nature (it is in the Hermitage’s permanent collection), but you might have been lucky enough to see it as I did in the glorious “Worshipping Women” exhibition some 15 years ago at the Onassis Cultural Center in midtown Manhattan. At 38 cm tall it’s
There’s not much better than High Classical relief sculpture, and this Athenian grave stele carved in the decades after the famed Parthenon frieze is second to none. Languid in her chair a young woman is gorgeously draped, with the crinkly fabric of her chiton dripping over her breasts to puddle in her lap and delicate
If you don’t like people and do like pots (specifically white ground lekythoi), head to the gorgeous and distressingly under-visited Kerameikos Museum. ‘Kerameikos’ refers to Athens’ potters quarter just to the northwest of the city. Refining and firing mass quantities of clay was stinky, smoky business best relegated just outside the city walls. The name
I admit to having a certain preference for the red-figure vases, with their elegant swooping lines, bodacious orange bodies, and fine drapery, and a special fondness great Athenian masters who pioneered and perfected the new technique. Shameful, I’m sure you would agree after taking a gander at this stunner! It’s from the tondo of a
Rings are so deeply personal, are they not? Visible and confronting each time one catches a glimpse of one’s hand. Which is all to say, the choice of subject matter matters, and in this case it is somewhat intriguing. It’s a masterpiece in miniature dating to the last decades of the 5th century B.C., found
Although the subject is tried and true (boy meets girl, war-torn romance, the allure of the Amazons, yada yada yada) this relief is groundbreaking in all the best ways. The metope was one of a dozen relief panels (one of four that survive) that once wrapped around the Temple of Hera (Temple E) at Selinunte
Spring is starting to make itself felt in the Northern hemisphere, which has me thinking about two real masterpieces of late Classical gold-working, whimsy, and observed nature. These are two wreaths (metal ones that served as honorifics, fancy dress for feasting, and the funeral…that eternal festival) that were excavated within ‘Tomb II’ at Vergina. Now
You might not have seen these before and if so might be at a loss about what exactly you’re looking at….I am to some extent, and would be out to sea without some good old archaeological context. Twenty-six life-sized smashed clay heads were found in an early 5th century B.C. tomb within the monumental necropolis
This is my favourite relief from the great monument built for the satrap Mausolos by his Greek-steeped, grief-stricken sister-wife Artemisia on his death at Halikarnassos (Bodrum for you modern hedonists). The monument was gigantic and a sensation, making most ancient ‘Seven Wonders of the World’ list, roughly rectangular in shape, with an imposing podium with
This painted portrait is somewhat difficult to place in time and space, is it not? There are hints of the glorious Macedonian wall paintings as well as the knowing glances of Roman mummy portraits from the Fayoum. It is a marble stele from Thebes, the Greek city that found itself continuously trounced by skirmishing armies
The delightfully animated winged woman on this cup fragment at Emory is likely Iris, the sprightly messenger of the gods. It’s a wonderful representation in every respect, with outstretched wings overlapping the tondo’s border, strongly articulated flight feathers, and an almost downy quality elsewhere rendered with dilute glaze. Her face is typical of the Brygos
This fragmentary lady was unearthed near the citadel of Mycenae in the late 19th century (not by Schliemann, poor guy) and, although she is widely represented in art history textbooks, remains something of an an enigma, sometimes colloquially referred to as the ‘Woman in the Window’. Her fame is rightly deserved, with that stepped, wig-like
Vase painting sometimes had a sculptural quality, and from an early period Herakles’ tidy coiffure and beard was a recipient of an attractive additive technique, with Euphronios being an early and great master of it. This fragment of a krater in Milan has all the highlights… Here the hero is in unrelenting profile, with that
The sheer bounty of material from ancient Olympia can be a little overwhelming – after all, for over five centuries it was arguably the most important sanctuary in the Greek world and this the site of its most conspicuous and competitive dedications. So it would be easy to overlook this terracotta group. And that would
If this tondo alone were to appear on the art market today, it would instantly be dismissed as a forgery: it’s an absolute outlier within Late Archaic vase painting, even jarringly different from the exterior scenes on the same cup. Happily, it was unearthed in Vulci during the early 19th century and we can dig
Cradled against the brawny chest of Euphorbos, little Oedipus’ downy flaxen head is tucked beneath the shepherd’s chin, his palm resting against that stalwart pectoral. It is unusual to see men carrying babies or children in Greek art, and even more unusual to encounter such a tender illustration (tender despite the child’s somewhat unsettling adult
With deftly modelled fingertips and slightly dimpled flesh, these nearly clasping female hands in Taranto exude an undeniable sensuality. These are not the chapped and nicked hands of a washerwoman (or former toiling archaeologist…sigh), but rather those of the moneyed leisured class, which the pair of gilt coiled-snake bracelets make abundantly clear. But they are
The rapacious god has transformed himself into an enormous eagle to abduct the beautiful Trojan youth Ganymede (his love interest du jour) and transport him to Olympus where he would serve as cup bearer of the gods – a plum position that apparently bestowed some perks of immortality upon the disoriented boy. Miniature as a
A decade after the Met’s acquisition of the famous Euphronios krater for a cool 1.2 million dollars (and presumably in part as a reaction to the soaring prices of Attic pottery) a most intriguing, ingenious, and inflammatory (depending on who you ask) theory was floated…. In a series of studies, Michael Vickers (and later jointly
While sharing many characteristics with his archaic kin, the so-called ‘Rampin rider’ is on the whole far more lively with a beguiling dip and tilt to the head, extraordinary plaits and trimmed beard, amused doe-eyed expression, and small asymmetries throughout. The head was found on the Akropolis in 1877 and was later donated to the
Is there any way to overestimate the immense impact of the Persian Wars on Athenian (even panHellenic) consciousness and self-determination? Shown here in relief (not such a big one, just over 50 cm tall), the city’s patron goddess is helmeted and standing in repose, one hand on her hip, and the other grasping the butt
As far as fragments go, this one has a lot to say! It is from near the shoulder of a big white-ground lekythos, produced in Athens around 480 B.C. and attributed to the master painter Douris. Unlike many white ground lekythoi, this one did not have funerary imagery. Rather it shows a beautiful youth, his
This miniature, full-length rendition of Demosthenes – that great Athenian statesman and orator – is a frequently overlooked masterpiece. His chiton reveals sloped shoulders and the distinctly unathletic body that famously prevented him from gymnastic pursuits as a child and pushed him into a career as an orator. As part of that precocious training, he
It could be argued that the very pose and activity of this delightfully carved Nike was chosen just to highlight the skills of an extremely talented sculptor. Because that carving is nothing less than the work of a true virtuoso. Originally part of the balustrade partially surrounding the tiny Temple of Athena Nike on the
This is a shocking cup in many ways. It is massive, if quite fragmentary, and provides the most heartbreaking rendering of the sack of Troy (the Iliupersis) in all of Greek art. Shown is the interior – the circular tondo in the centre, and the the upper part of a more fragmentary frieze encircling it.
While sharing many characteristics with his archaic kin, the so-called ‘Rampin rider’ is on the whole far more lively with a beguiling dip and tilt to the head, extraordinary plaits and trimmed beard, amused doe-eyed expression, and small asymmetries throughout. The head was found on the Akropolis in 1877 and was later donated to the
This is an unusual and very clever south Italian vase fragment now in the Allard Pierson Museum. Not only has the artist rendered an ingenious cutaway, perspectival view of a temple, he has also shown the god Apollo surveying it and his own cult statue in a rather ambivalent manner… The fragment belonged to a
There is a lot to love about the Greeks in Sicily: they were horse-crazy, temple-mad, fiercely competitive in all arenas, and produced some of my favorite tyrants and (not incidentally) my favorite coins. And this type is arguably the very finest of them all, showing the nereid (water nymph) Arethusa in delightful profile, surrounded by
On his ten year long (poor Penelope…) nautical journey home from Troy, the wily hero Odysseus encountered epic obstacles, one of the most memorable being the Sirens – mythical creatures (half-women, half-bird) who lured seafarers to their deaths with their irresistibly sweet voices. In the Odyssey, the hero’s temporary lover (poor Penelope…) Circe described the
Hailing from Tiberius’ famous grotto in Sperlonga (south of Rome) this is Diomedes (that gorgeous hand!) absconding with the palladion of Troy (its protectress and cult statue of Athena carved from wood) as that city was pillaged. There is a lot to be said about Sperlonga and the Trojan palladion. But not here! What I