Property from a Distinguished Estate, New York
A Greek Marble Grave Stele Fragment, Attic, circa 1st half of the 4th Century B.C.
Estimate
70,000 - 100,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
finely carved in high relief with the head of a woman facing left against an anta and wearing disk earrings, her wavy hair surmounted by a flaring polos, the letters ...]ΛΗ engraved on the architrave above, the stele crowned by a gabled pediment with acroteria.
66 by 61 by 17 cm.
Brummer Gallery, New York
Ella Baché Brummer (Galerie Koller and Spink & Son, Zurich, The Ernst Brummer Collection, Part II, October 16th-19th, 1979, no. 599, illus.)
acquired by the present owner likely in the 1980s
Brummer Gallery photograph:
https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16028coll9/id/66224/rec/26 (post-1950)
https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16028coll9/id/64835/rec/46
Christopher Clairmont, Classical Attic Tombstones, vol. 2., Kilchberg, no. 2.282, illus.
The unusual headdress, normally an attribute of Demeter, appears on the mid fourth-century Boeotian grave stele of Amphotto, thought to depict a priestess (S. Karouzou, National Archaeological Museum: Collection of Sculpture, 1968, no. 739, pl. 19; N. Kaltsas, Sculpture in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, 2002, no. 179; arachne.dainst.org/entity/1100966). Alternatively, the Brummer catalogue entry suggests that "in the present example the crown is a nuptial one, and that the woman, who must have been seated, is shown as a bride". Chr. Clairmont (op. cit.) emphasises the superior quality of the present fragment.
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