Published Catalogue Text: Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums , written 1990
26
Fragment of an Attic Grave Relief
The irregular break at the right looks more modern than the older break below. The surface is worn and discolored with some incrustation.
The relief show a bearded man, seated and turned to the right, with right arm extended. He wears a himation around his lower limbs and over his left shoulder. He sits on a klismos, a graceful Athenian chair. He was grasping the hand of a person, probably a woman, who was standing in front of him. There is a broad, architectural border at the left, and a similar flat, fillet border at the top. On the more complete stele of Potamon the Aulete in the National Museum, Athens, the figure standing at the right is a young man (Reinach, 1909-1912, 11, p. 396, no. 4). A relief on the art market in New York shows a somewhat more Pheidian man being bidden farewell by a standing woman, while a servant girl holds the lady's jewel box as she too stands, at the right. This relief is complete and is dated 375-350 BC (Sotheby Sale, London, 15 July, 1980, p. 22, no. 27; Schefold, Cahn, 1960, pp. 81-82, 248, 263, illus.).
Cornelius Vermeule and Amy Brauer
