A precise identification of the youth—as an athlete, for instance—is impeded by the lack of attributes. A band circles his head, and crisp curls fringe his face and the nape of his neck. The smooth crown of the head is less likely to represent a cap than to indicate that paint was used for hair.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Head of a youth from a marble stele (grave marker)
Period:Archaic
Date:ca. 525 BCE
Culture:Greek, Attic
Medium:Marble, Parian
Dimensions:Overall: 10 1/4 x 15 1/2 in. (26 x 39.4 cm); thickness at top 15 1/4 in. (38.7 cm); thickness at bottom 15 7/16 in. (39.3 cm)
Classification:Stone Sculpture
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1942
Object Number:42.11.36
Said to have been found in Vari (Greece), near Sounion, by the sea (Brummer Gallery stock card P8122, Brummer Gallery Records)
[By 1925, with Theodoros Zoumboulakis (Zoumpoulakis) and Michel Roussos, Athens and Paris]; [September 1931, acquired by Joseph Brummer, purchased from Th. Zoumboulakis and M. Roussos]; [1931-1942, with Joseph Brummer, New York (P8122)]; acquired on June 19, 1942, purchased from J. Brummer.
Taylor, Francis Henry. 1952. "The Archaic Smile: A Commentary on the Arts in Times of Crisis." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 10(8): p. 222.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 50, 194, pl. 34b, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1954. Catalogue of Greek Sculptures. no. 17, pp. 14–15, pl. 21a, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1961. The Archaic Gravestones of Attica. no. 52, pp. 35–36, fig. 133, London: Phaidon Press.
Forsyth, William Holmes and The International Confederation of Dealers in Works of Art. 1974. "Acquisitions from the Brummer Gallery." The Grand Gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Sixth International Exhibition presented by C.I.N.O.A.. p. 2, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Robertson, Martin and Cambridge University Press. 1975. A History of Greek Art, Vols. 1 and 2. p. 109, pl. 28d, Cambridge, England.
Billot, Marie-Françoise. 1977. "Recherches sur le sphinx du Louvre CA 637." Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, 101(1): p. 415 n. 101.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1987. Greece and Rome. pp. 12–3, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Schäfer, Thomas. 1996. "Gepickt und versteckt. Zur Bedeutung und Funktion aufgerauhter Oberflächen in der spätarchaischen und frühklassischen Plastik." Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, 111: p. 41 n. 59.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 80, pp. 81, 421, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Lazzarini, Lorenzo and Clemente Marconi. 2014. "A New Analysis of Major Greek Sculptures in the Metropolitan Museum: Petrological and Stylistic." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 49: pp. 119, 121, 130, 138–39, fig. 4b, Appendix.
Hemingway, Seán. 2021. How to Read Greek Sculpture. pp. 22, 24, fig. 10, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Zanker, Paul. 2022. Afterlives : Ancient Greek Funerary Monuments in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. no. 6, pp. 38–39, New York: Scala Publishers.
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The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than 30,000 works ranging in date from the Neolithic period to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312.
