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Ten marble fragments of the Great Eleusinian Relief

Period: Early Imperial, Augustan

Date: ca. 27 B.C.–A.D. 14

Culture: Roman

Medium: Marble

Dimensions: H. 89 3/8 in. (227 cm)

Classification: Stone Sculpture

Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1914

Accession Number: 14.130.9

Description

Demeter, the goddess of agricultural abundance, stands at the left, clad in a peplos and himation (cloak) and holding a scepter. At the right is Persephone, her daughter and the wife of Hades, the god of the underworld. She is dressed in a chiton and himation. Each goddess extends her right hand toward a nude youth, but it is no longer possible to determine what they held. The boy is thought to be Triptolemos, who was sent by Demeter to teach men how to cultivate grain. On contemporary Athenian vases, he is usually shown as a bearded adult seated in a winged chariot about to set out on his civilizing mission. The original marble relief was found at the sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis, the site of the Eleusinian mysteries, a secret cult that was famous throughout antiquity.

The original Greek work and a number of Roman copies survive. Here the ten Roman fragments are embedded in a cast of the Greek relief. Compared to the original, the execution of the hair and drapery in the copy is sharper and accords with the style current in Augustan art.

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The middle of the fifth century B.C. is often referred to as the Golden Age of Greece, particularly of Athens. Significant achievements were made in

Attic vase painting. Most notably, the red-figure technique superseded the black-figure technique, and with that, great strides were made in portraying the human body, clothed or naked, at rest or in motion. The work of vase painters, such as Douris, Makron, Kleophrades, and the Berlin Painter (56.171.38), exhibit exquisitely rendered details.

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Terracotta amphora (jar)

Attributed to the Berlin Painter

Period: Late Archaic

Date: ca. 490 B.C.

Culture: Greek, Attic

Medium: Terracotta; red-figure

Dimensions: H. 16 5/16 in. (41.50 cm)

Classification: Vases

Credit Line: Fletcher Fund, 1956

Accession Number: 56.171.38

Description

This work is a masterpiece of Greek vase-painting because it brings together many features of Athenian culture in an artistic expression of the highest quality. The shape itself is central to the effect. Through the symmetry, scale, and luminously glossy glaze on the obverse, it offers a carefully composed three-dimensional surface that endows the subject with volume. The identity of the singer is given by his instrument, the kithara, which was a type of lyre used in public performances, including recitations of epic poetry. The figure on the reverse is identified by his garb and wand. While the situation is probably a competition, the subject is the music itself. It transports the performer, determines his pose, and causes the cloth below the instrument to sway gently.

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Although the high point of Classical expression was short-lived, it is important to note that it was forged during the Persian Wars (490–479 B.C.) and continued after the Peloponnesian War (431–404 B.C.) between Athens and a league of allied city-states led by

Sparta. The conflict continued intermittently for nearly thirty years. Athens suffered irreparable damage during the war and a devastating plague that lasted over four years. Although the city lost its primacy, its artistic importance continued unabated during the fourth century B.C. The elegant, calligraphic style of late fifth-century sculpture (35.11.3)

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Marble relief with a dancing maenad

Adaptation of work attributed to Kallimachos

Period: Early Imperial, Augustan

Date: ca. 27 B.C.–A.D. 14

Culture: Roman

Medium: Marble, Pentelic

Dimensions: H. 56 5/16 in. (143 cm)

Classification: Stone Sculpture

Credit Line: Fletcher Fund, 1935

Accession Number: 35.11.3

Description

Maenads were mythical women inspired by the god of wine, Dionysos, to abandon their homes and families and roam the mountains and forests, singing and dancing in a state of ecstatic frenzy. This figure, wearing an ivy wreath and carrying a thyrsos (fennel stalk) bedecked with ivy leaves and berries, moves forward, trancelike, her drapery swirling about her. She was copied from a famous relief of dancing maenads dated to the late fifth century B.C., when Euripides portrayed the manic devotées of Dionysos in his play the Bacchae.

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was followed by a sober grandeur in both freestanding statues (06.311)

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Marble statue of Eirene (the personification of peace)

Roman copy of Greek original by Kephisodotos

Period: Early Imperial, Julio-Claudian

Date: ca. A.D. 14–68

Culture: Roman

Medium: Marble, Pentelic ?

Dimensions: H. without plinth 69 3/4 in. (177.2 cm)

Classification: Stone Sculpture

Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1906

Accession Number: 06.311

Description

Eirene, the daughter of Zeus and Themis, was one of the three Horai (Seasons), maidens closely associated with the fertility of the earth and the nurturing of children. The original bronze was erected in the Agora (marketplace) of Athens between 375/374 and 360/359 B.C. Rarely can an ancient monument be dated so exactly. We know from literary sources that the cult of Eirene was introduced to Athens in 375/374, and six recently found Panathenaic amphorae dated to 360/359 show an image of the statue. The Greek traveler Pausanius saw the work in the Agora in the second century A.D. and reported that it was by the sculptor Kephisodotos. Eirene was represented as a beautiful young woman wearing a peplos and himation (cloak), holding a scepter in her right hand, and carrying the young child Ploutos (the personification of wealth) and a cornucopia on her left arm. The figure brings to mind images of Demeter, the major goddess of agricultural plenty and the mother of Ploutos.

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and many grave monuments (11.100.2).

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Marble grave stele with a family group

Period: Late Classical

Date: ca. 360 B.C.

Culture: Greek, Attic

Medium: Marble, Pentelic

Dimensions: H. 67 3/8 in. (171.1 cm)

Classification: Stone Sculpture

Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1911

Accession Number: 11.100.2

Description

Because the framing niche that once surrounded this relief is missing, there are no inscriptions that might identify the deceased. Both the seated man and the veiled woman behind him stare straight ahead, as if the young woman who gazes down at them were invisible. Do they mourn their dead daughter? Does she mourn her dead father, or is she the sole survivor of the group? Despite its ambiguity and solemn sadness, the relief conveys an intense, though restrained, sense of family unity. Carved by a master, this grave stele is one of the most magnificent examples that have survived from the classical period.

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One of the far-reaching innovations in sculpture at this time, and one of the most celebrated statues of antiquity, was the nude Aphrodite of Knidos, by the Athenian sculptor Praxiteles. Praxiteles’ creation broke one of the most tenacious conventions in Greek art in which the female figure had previously been shown draped. Its slender proportions and distinctive contrapposto stance became hallmarks of fourth-century B.C. Greek sculpture. In architecture, the Corinthian—characterized by ornate, vegetal column capitals—first came into vogue. And for the first time, artistic schools were established as institutions of learning. Among the most famous was the school at Sicyon in the Peloponnese, which emphasized a cumulative knowledge of art, the foundation of art history. Greek artists also traveled more extensively than in previous centuries. The sculptor Skopas of Paros traveled throughout the eastern Mediterranean for his commissions, among them the Mausoleum at Halicarnassos, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

While Athens began to decline during the fourth century B.C., the influence of Greek cities in southern Italy and Sicily spread to indigenous cultures that readily adopted Greek styles and employed Greek artists. Depictions of Athenian drama, which flourished in the fifth century with the work of Aeschylus, Sophokles, and Euripides, was an especially popular subject for locally produced pottery (

24.97.104).

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Terracotta calyx-krater (mixing bowl)

Attributed to the Dolon Painter

Period: Late Classical

Date: ca. 400–390 B.C.

Culture: Greek, South Italian, Lucanian

Medium: Terracotta; red-figure

Dimensions: H. 12 1/16 in. (30.6 cm)

diameter 12 1/2 in. (31.8 cm)

Classification: Vases

Credit Line: Fletcher Fund, 1924

Accession Number: 24.97.104

Description

Obverse, scene from a phlyax play. Reverse, three youths

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During the mid-fourth century B.C., Macedonia (in northern Greece) became a formidable power under Philip II (r. 360/59–336 B.C.), and the Macedonian royal court became the leading center of Greek culture. Philip’s military and political achievements ably served the conquests of his son,

Alexander the Great (r. 336–323 B.C.). Within eleven years, Alexander subdued the Persian empire of western Asia and Egypt, continuing into Central Asia as far as the Indus River valley. During his reign, Alexander cultivated the arts as no patron had done before him. Among his retinue of artists was the court sculptor Lysippos, arguably one of the most important artists of the fourth century B.C. His works, most notably his portraits of Alexander (and the work they influenced), inaugurated many features of Hellenistic sculpture, such as the heroic ruler portrait (52.127.4).

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Gold stater

Period: Hellenistic

Date: 286–281 B.C.

Culture: Greek

Medium: Gold

Dimensions: Diam.: 3/4 in. (1.9 cm)

Classification: Coins

Credit Line: Gift of Edmund Kerper, 1952

Accession Number: 52.127.4

Description

Issue of Lysimachos, minted at Pella: head of Alexander the Great; seated Athena.

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