A GREEK BRONZE MAIDEN

CLASSICAL PERIOD, CIRCA 440 B.C.

Details

A GREEK BRONZE MAIDEN
CLASSICAL PERIOD, CIRCA 440 B.C.
Wearing plain shoes, a long chiton with crinkly folds and buttons down the right shoulder, and a himation with smooth folds over her left shoulder, around her waist and over her left arm, holding a dove out before her in her left hand, and clutching the himation at her waist in her right hand, which is fisted for possible attachment of a now-missing attribute, her center-parted hair bound in a diadem and arranged in a chignon
5 3/8 in. (13.6 cm.) high

Provenance

Julius Carlebach, New York.
with Royal-Athena Galleries, New York, 1989.

Literature

C.C. Vermeule and J.M. Eisenberg, Catalogue of the Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Bronzes in the Collection of John Kluge, New York and Boston, 1992, no. 89-69.

Exhibited

The Divine and the Domestic: Ancient Art from the Mediterranean, Charlottesville, Virginia, Bayly Art Museum, 30 January - 22 March 1998.

Lot Essay

Votaries offering a dove were popular in Greek art during the 5th century. The dove is also associated with Aphrodite, and as such, the figures represented holding a dove may actually depict the goddess rather than a devotee. For such bronzes identified as the goddess see nos. 118, 119, 125, 166 & 168 in Delivorrias, et al., "Aphrodite" in LIMC.

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