Limestone statue of a bearded man wearing a wreath and carrying votive offerings. Artist unknown; ca. 475-450 BCE. From Cyprus; now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Tetradrachm of the polisof Rhegion (present-day Reggio Calabria) in Bruttium, south Italy. On the obverse, a lion’s head; on the reverse, the head of Apollo, crowned with laurel. Artist unknown; minted between 410 and 387 BCE. Photo credit: Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com
The chariot of Aurora, goddess of the dawn, ascends into the sky to begin a new day. Sunflowers turn toward the light, while a bat flees with the darkness. A winged boy, or putto, awakens Aurora’s brother, the sun god Helios.
The broad brushstrokes and small scale of this canvas suggest that it was made as a sketch for a larger painting. Its subject matter would have been perfectly appropriate for the ceiling of a bedroom in an opulent eighteenth-century home.
For forty years at the beginning of the 20th century, the painting was hidden away in storage because its buyer deemed it too provicative for public display.
Scythian stag, c 5th Century BC. Leather antlers, wooden body, originally covered in gold leaf. Originally top of headdress, found in a burial chamber in the Altai mountains. [1536x1970]
A pair of terracotta boots from an ancient Greek burial. They were found with the cremated remains of a woman from the Geometric Period, around 900 BCE. Since most shoes and clothing were quite perishable, these replicas give us some idea of what Greek people would have worn to slosh around in the mud 3,000 years ago.
The goddess Artemis, wielding her bow and quiver of arrows. Attic red-figure lekythos, attributed to the Carlsruhe Painter; 450s BCE. Now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The goddess stands in a relaxed pose, a mantle draped around her waist on a rectangular base. She leans with the left arm on her son Priapos, who is characteristically depicted with an erect phallus and fruit. The precise and detailed rendition show that this is a high-quality piece. Head and right arm of Aphrodite lost.
Greek - Peloponnesian / Classical Period - Late 5th century B.C.
The head of the pin begins with a ball, above which is a small shaft; from this rises an ornament in the form of a rosebud. Three lions crouch with their hind legs on the ball, and their forelegs on the bud. Between them, there are conventionalized petals. Above the lions are three bees, and between them three sphinxes, pressed flat. At the top, there is another small petal.
“Soon after, Eva also arrives, wearing her Greek female tunic, decorated like mine. Her wavy hair falls on her shoulders like tongues of fire and illuminates her entire slender figure, like a classical statue. I imagine her coming out of the Parthenon, in the role of a queen. She is beautiful to say the least. May the Olympian Gods be with her.”
