Attic funerary monument with three figures
A nude man stands on the right; his body is youthful and athletic, but the face is middle-aged. Holes to each side of his head show that he once wore an attached metal wreath that elevated him above the everyday sphere. Beside him, a woman in a long robe rests her left hand on his shoulder; their right hands were once clasped. She was probably looking at the man, but he gazes past her; he is already elsewhere. The boy standing alone between the two is not their child, but a slave. The monument must have belonged to a wealthy man.
The portrait of the deceased shows no individuality, which makes the piece a typical example of 4th-century Athenian funerary art. The features of the dead man immortalised the human idea of classical Greece: the “beautiful and good” man.
Marble analyses conducted by Danielle Decrouez (Geneva, Museum of Natural History) and Karl Ramseyer (University of Bern, Institute of Geological Sciences) have shown that the funerary relief was made of Pentelic marble. Click here for the detailed results.
