On this gravestone, a little girl stands in profile, bowing her head with a seriousness unusual in someone so young. Her face is serene and strong like an adult’s 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 woolen garment, a rectangle of cloth, folded over at the top and fastened at the shoulders. The two edges running down her side are unsewn; the dress hangs open. The clothes suggest and clarify the pose of the body beneath them. Without seeing any muscles, you can tell that the child has her weight on her right leg.
She is holding one bird affectionately close, and it seems to nestle up to her. On her left hand you see the feet of the other bird perching on her fingers. Children often appear with their pets on grave reliefs, and these doves must be the little girl’s favorites. The gravestone seems to show an everyday moment. At the same time, it seems eternal. This is the motivating principle of the classical style: to describe nature and also to idealize it.
The gravestone was found on the Greek island of Paros, one of the many small islands in the Aegean Sea. The group of islands is known as the Cyclades, as they appear to form a circle around the island of Delos, which was sacred to Apollo. All are mountainous, and some, like Paros, are composed largely of marble. Parian marble was highly prized in antiquity, and is still considered one of the finest marbles in the world for carving sculpture. You can see the way it lends itself to sharp carving. Notice the fine, even crystals, and its translucency in the light. The restrained beauty of this figure brings to mind the youths carved on the frieze that encircles the outer walls of the Parthenon, the temple dedicated to Athena on the Akropolis of Athens. Many artists went to Athens to work on that project in the mid-fifth century B.C., and the sculptor of this little grave monument could well have been among them.
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