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Some Relief Sculptures in the Museum of the British School at Athens

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

G. B. Waywell
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Extract

The British School at Athens has had in its possession for many years now a number of fragments of Greek relief sculpture, mostly from funerary or votive monuments. The origin of these sculptures is obscure, but it seems likely that they were collected by the historian George Finlay, probably during the first half of the nineteenth century. It is the purpose of this article to publish photographs and details of some of the more important fragments, and also to attempt to date them and to interpret the scenes which they show.

S.7. Plate 73a. A fragment from the lower right corner of a relief. H. 0·27 m., W. 0·45 m., Th. 0·17 m., Depth of relief 1 cm. Pentelic marble. Part of the right-hand edge of the relief remains, where it can be seen that there was no side frame. Below, there is a simple plinth or ground-line with a flat surface, and beneath this a rougher receding margin of about the same width, perhaps where the relief was inserted into a base

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 65 , November 1970 , pp. 271 - 275
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1970

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References

1 I wish to thank the Managing Committee of the British School at Athens for permission to publish these sculptures. The two most important Greek works in the School's possession have recently been dealt with in detail elsewhere and so are omitted here. For the late fifth-century B.C. triple Hecate see Eckstein, , Antike Plastik iv (1965) 27–36Google Scholar, and for a fragmentary relief showing the goddess Athena which adjoins a late fifth-century chariot relief in the British Museum, see Waywell, , BSA lxii (1967) 19–26.Google Scholar The abbreviations for museums which I use throughout this article are: NM: National Museum, Athens. EM: Epigraphical Museum, Athens.

2 The most famous groups of dancing females, the Maenads and the Saltantes Lacaenae of Kallimachos, probably derive from two reliefs produced in the late fifth century B.C. These are preserved in a variety of Neo-Attic copies. Cf. Fuchs, , Die Vorbilder der neu-attischen Reliefs (1959) 72–96.Google Scholar There are also a number of Neo-Attic reliefs with dancing maidens who are probably to be identified as Horai or Aglaurides, and these may well derive from a late Classical original of high quality. Fuchs, op. cit. 63 ff., suggests a date of c. 350–325 B.C. for the original, which makes it later than the relief we are dealing with. I do not know of any other sculptured dancing females of the first half of the fourth century B.C. who can be taken as anything other than Nymphs or Graces. An exception may just possibly exist in the decree relief EM 7859 of 377/6 B.C.: Svoronos, , Das athener National-museum, pl. 210Google Scholar; Binneboessel, , Studien zu den attischen Urkundenreliefs (1932) no. 33Google Scholar; IG ii2. 1410. This shows a seated male figure and the remains of a running or dancing female, who might be interpreted as Cecrops and the last of a troup of Aglaurides. At least the contents of the decree, which records a transfer of money between treasury officials, demand some subject-matter appropriate to the Acropolis. The distinction between reliefs to the Nymphs and reliefs to the Aglaurides is very hazy however, since the latter were merely Nymphs of the dew. Cf. Cook, A. B., Zeus iii (1490) 237 ff.Google Scholar

3 Feubel, , Die attischen Nymphenreliefs (1935)Google Scholar; Fuchs, , AM lxxvii (1962) 242–9.Google Scholar

4 In particular, NM 1329: Svoronos, pl. 44; Schuchhardt, , Die Epochen der griechischen Plastik (1959) 90, fig. 64.Google Scholar Berlin K. 83: Blümel, , Die klassisch griechischen Skulpturen (1966)Google Scholar, no. 69, fig. 101.

5 e.g. NM 3572: Karusos, , AM liv (1929) 1–5Google Scholar, pl. 1, c. 420 B.C. NM 1432: Svoronos, pl. 59, 3, c. 400–375 B.C. NM 1332: Svoronos pl. 36, 2, c. 350 B.C. NM 1461: Svoronos, pl. 77; Rizzo, , Prassitele, pl. 154, 2, c.Google Scholar 350–325 B.C. Eleusis, decree relief, 319/18 B.C.? Mitchel, , Hesperia xxxiii (1964) 343, pls. 65–6.Google Scholar For similar scenes on RF vases, see Metzger, , Représentations (1951) 243 ff.Google Scholar

6 For herms on votive reliefs cf. the following. Aphrodite reliefs: Acr. 7097, Walter, Beschreibung der Reliefs im kleinen Akropolismuseum in Athen, no. 263; Chalcis Museum, Schefold, , JdI lii (1937) 59, fig. 18Google Scholar; Lateran Museum, EA 2226. Relief to Asklepios: NM 1377, Svoronos, pl. 48. Nymph reliefs: Acr. 2735+2567, Walter, Beschreibung, nos. 177 and 177a; NM 1879, Svoronos, pl. 97. See also Harrison, , Agora, xi: Archaic and Archaistic Sculpture (1965) 140 ff.Google Scholar

7 The earliest sculptural example seems to be the socalled Venus Genetrix statue, Lippold, , Griechische Plastik 168, pl. 60, 4.Google Scholar For the motif in minor relief sculpture cf. decree relief, Walter, Beschreibung, no. 2 of 417/16 B.C.; NM 1388, Svoronos, pl. 53, c. 420–410 B.C.; NM 1389, Svoronos, pl. 54, c. 410 B.C.; NM 1346, Svoronos, pl. 35, 1, c. 400 B.C.; NM 1392, Svoronos, pl. 57, c. 390 B.C.

8 Lullies, , Die Typen der griechischen Herme (1931) 44Google Scholar, is adamant on this point. He is followed by Fuchs, , Die Vorbilder 36 n. 73Google Scholar, and by Harrison, op. cit. 140 n. 232. Clearly some reappraisal is necessary.

9 e.g. Walter, , Beschreibung, nos. 129–70Google Scholar; Svoronos, pls. 117–20; Berlin K. 107, Blümel, op. cit. 94, fig. 128. There are slight variations in the position of the lion, which sometimes lies on Cybele's lap, sometimes sits by her right side.

10 Caskey, , Catalogue (1925) no. 50, p. 106.Google ScholarCarpenter, Rhys, Greek Sculpture (1960) 153–5Google Scholar, claims it to be original work of Agorakritos.

11 Cf. especially the male figure who wears a long himation on the Agora tripod base, Harrison, op. cit. 80, pl. 30.

12 Herculaneum women: Lippold, op. cit. 242, pl. 86, 1–2. Themis of Rhamnous: Lippold, op. cit., pl. 108, 1. Cf. the grave relief, NM 1005, Conze, no. 807, pl. 153.

13 Harrison, op. cit. 52.

14 For example, triple Hecates, triads of Nymphs and Graces.

15 Fuchs, , Die Vorbilder 59 ff.Google Scholar

16 The origins and development of archaistic sculpture have been much discussed recently. Havelock, C., AJA lxviii (1964) 43 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar and AJA lxix (1965) 331–40, has argued in favour of the theory put forward earlier by Becatti, which sees archaistic sculpture as largely the product of Neo-Attic workshops. I prefer the alternative theory, worked out in detail by Schmidt, Archaistische Kunst, and accepted in its essentials by Fuchs and Harrison, namely that archaistic sculpture derives directly from Archaic by way of a series of herms and idols, and first blossoms into a style of its own in the rather mannered climate of the second half of the fourth century B.C. It was this style, of which I believe the relief S.1+S.53 to be an example, which was imitated by the later Neo-Atticists.