Published Catalogue Text: Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums , written 1990
25 Attic
Multi-Figured Grave Stele
The inscription from the architrave probably contained ca. 23 letters according to Sterling Dow. It has been partially reconstructed:
[woman’s name in nominative] [father’s nomen in genitive] [father’s demotic in genitive] [Θϒ] ΓΑTΗΡ
The stele has been considerably recut (J. Frel, note in object file, 13 February 1970). The man is a recut "old nurse," her woman's garb still showing; the back legs of the chair and the dying woman's arms (both?) are also recut.
There are four figures: two are standing--a "bearded man" (originally the "old nurse" and later recut) near the center, and a woman behind him. A dying woman is being supported by a servant at the right. The dying woman, labeled "Daughter" on the architrave above, wears a thin chiton fallen off the left shoulder, and a himation around her lower limbs. The original version of this scene of a woman expiring on a chair or short couch, mourned by one woman, aided by an old nurse in the center, and supported by a servant occurs in other Attic sepulchral monuments, notably a stele in the National Museum, Athens, from Oropos (Reinach, 1909-1912, 11, p. 402, no. 3). An abbreviated version, omitting the person on the extreme left, appears on an Attic marble, fluted lekythos in the Louvre (Reinach, 1909-1912, 11, p. 292, no. 6).
Cornelius Vermeule and Amy Brauer
