Marble female figure

Technical analyses: Multiband imaging, optical microscopy

This small, marble figure is complete with only slight superficial losses and a repair at the neck. It depicts a reclining female figure with a triangular-shaped, backward-tilted, flat head with a wide, rounded crown, v-shaped chin, and a broad nose carved in relief high on the facial plane. To the right of the nose may be the ghost of a painted lentoid/ovoid right eye with a tiny dot for the pupil. The long, thick, cylindrical neck joins the sharply squared shoulders and torso at a v-shaped indentation. The upper arms project at the sides and the tapering forearms are folded left over right below widely-spaced, conical breasts carved in relief. Below the folded arms are two deeply-defined, horizontal belly folds. Shallow grooves indicate the pubic triangle and vulva, the latter continuing unbroken into the groove that delineates the figure’s disproportionately short, thick, co-joined legs and equally thick, stubby, slightly arched feet. Short grooves describe four toes on each foot. At the back of the figure, a thick, v-shaped incision indicates the base of the neck. From here, a continuous, vertical groove describes the spine, separation of the buttocks, and boundaries of the legs and raised heels of the feet.


Most of the white marble’s surface is weathered with erosion along calcite grain boundaries. There are occasional patches of brown accretions, some of which are in the shape of rootlets. This figure is very similar to other works attributed to the Dresden sculptor. (1)

Sandy MacGillivray, Dorothy Abramitis and Elisabeth Hendrix

(1) See, Thimme, Jürgen, ed. 1997. Art and Culture of the Cyclades: Handbook of an Ancient Civilisation. nos. 229, 230, Karlsruhe: C. F. Müller. See also Getz-Preziosi, Pat. 1987. Sculptors of the Cyclades: Individual and Tradition in the Third Millennium B.C. pp. 126-30, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. See also Sotirakopoulou, Peggy, The ‘Keros Hoard’: Myth or Reality? Searching for the lost pieces of a puzzle. pp. 168-169 no.137, Athens: N.P. Goulandris Foundation - Museum of Cycladic Art.