CLASSICAL PERIOD, CIRCA 350-320 B.C.

During the Classical Period the desire to have bigger, taller and more ornate funerary monuments knew no bounds, leading in the end for a funerary law to be passed, sometime between 318-307 B.C. to prohibit these extravagant displays. This massive anthemion would have crowned a tall stele, the curling split palmette emerging from thick spiralling stems. For similar see J. B. Grossman, Greek Funerary Sculpture, Catalogue at the Collections at the Getty Villa, Los Angeles, 2001, pp. 92-93, no. 34, and N. Kaltsas, Sculpture in the National Archaeological Museum Athens, 2002, p. 189, nos 372 and 383, a stele topped with an anthemion and standing over 3 metres high. For a rare double-sided anthemion, like the above example, cf. M. Comstock and C. Vermeule, Greek, Etruscan and Roman Bronzes in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1971, p. 49, no. 72.