On this gravestone, a little girl stands in profile. She bows her head with an unusual sadness for her age, vividly expressed on her face. Look at the care the artist has taken to carve out every strand of her hair, letting its waves fall in different directions, and working them all into an elegant arrangement. The child wears the simplest garment, a rectangle of woolen cloth called the peplos, folded over at the top and fastened at the shoulders. Here the dress is open along her right side, revealing the underlying body. She wears sandals, which originally had straps painted on her feet.

The little girl is holding a dove close to her chest, the bird pecking her gently on the lips. Another perches on her fingers. Children often appear with their pets on grave reliefs, and we can tell from the tender, affectionate way in which she holds them that they were her favorites. The gravestone seems to show an everyday moment. At the same time, it is eternal. This is the motivating principle of the classical style: to describe nature and also to idealize it.

This gravestone was found on the Greek island of Paros in the Aegean Sea, one of the group of islands known as the Cyclades. Notice the fine, even crystals of the marble, and its translucency in the light. Parian marble was highly prized in antiquity, and is still considered one of the finest marbles in the world for carving sculpture.