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Marble capital and finial in the form of a sphinx

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Marble capital and finial in the form of a sphinx

Period:
Archaic
Date:
ca. 530 B.C.
Culture:
Greek, Attic
Medium:
Marble, Parian
Dimensions:
H. with akroterion 56 1/8 in. (142.6 cm)
Classification:
Stone Sculpture
Credit Line:
Munsey Fund, 1936, 1938
Accession Number:
11.185d, x

This artwork is currently on display in Gallery 154

  • Description

    This capital and sphinx originally crowned the tall grave marker of a youth and a little girl on view in this gallery. A plaster copy has been set on the monument itself.

    The sphinx, a mythological creature with a lion's body and a human head, was known in various forms throughout the eastern Mediterranean region from the Bronze Age onward. The Greeks represented it as a winged female and often placed its image on grave monuments as guardian of the dead. This sphinx, which retains abundant traces of red, black, and blue pigment, was carved separately from the capital on which it stands. Its plinth was let into a socket at the top of the capital and secured by a metal dowel and a bed of molten lead. The capital is in the form of two double volutes (spiral scrolls) designed like a lyre. The front face of the capital also had a painted design of palmettes and volutes.

  • Provenance

    Said to be from Attica

  • References

    The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1987. Greece and Rome. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, no. 16, pp. 30-31.

    Coscia, Joseph, Jr. and Elizabeth J. Milleker. 2003. Light on Stone: Greek and Roman Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a Photographic Essay. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, pp. 95-96, pl. 6.

  • See also
    What
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    In the Museum
    Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
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