Female musician with a lyre and singing man

Classification

relief

Culture

Thracian

Dimensions

16,6 x 30,5 x 7,5 cm

Date

1st century B.C.

Period

Hellenistic Period (Greek, 323–31)

Material

marble ; marble analysis

Iconography

lyre ; goatskin (nebris); chiton ; alopekis (thracian cap); female figure ; aged man ; musician, poet ; singing figure

Findspot

Rome?

Present location

Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts, Collection of Classical Antiquities

Provenance

Hartwig, Paul, Collection ; Arndt, Paul (1865–1937)

Inventory

4795

Hyp-6847

References

Hekler 1929, 107, no. 96; Garezou: Orpheus, in LIMC VII (1994), 98, no. 190

The female musician on the relief wears a typical Thracian headdress, while the singing man also has foreign features. The relief fragment thus “transmits” the feeling associated with exotic music.

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 relief was made of white marble of unknown origin. Click here for the detailed results.

This record is subject to revision due to ongoing research.