Getty Museum

Grave Naiskos of a Seated Woman with Two Standing Women

Date

about 340 B.C.

Medium

Marble

Culture

Greek

Department

Sculpture

Institution

Getty Museum

Three women fill this naiskos, or small funerary shrine. The arrangement of the figures is fairly standard for such monuments in the mid 300s B.C. At the right, a seated woman reaches out and shakes hands with a woman standing at the left. The handshake was a frequent gesture on Greek grave monuments of this time, symbolizing a continuing connection between the deceased and living family members. The third woman, carved in low relief in the background, probably once held her hand to her cheek in a gesture of mourning. Her long-sleeved dress identifies her as an enslaved person. Although this grave monument follows contemporary fashions in its overall form and placement of figures, the unknown sculptor has still conveyed some sense of individual identity. The wealth of the family is suggested by the details of clothing, the cloth laid over the chair seat, the presence of the enslaved individual, and the rolls of flesh on the seated woman's neck. These marks, called "Venus rings," conveyed the health and fertility that wealth provided. The monument lacks an inscription, which would have indicated for whom it was intended.

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