Harvard Art Museums

Seated Goddess on Throne, pulling aside her veil

Date

c. 470-450 BCE

Medium

Terracotta, mold made

Culture

Greek

Department

Department of Ancient and Byzantine Art & Numismatics

Institution

Harvard Art Museums

Perhaps from a provincial South Italian workshop, Intact statuette. Object is very heavy and made of dark, reddish-brown clay with traces of plaster or whitish incrustation on back covering areas of smoothing. Also evident on lower left side under the throne and in interstices on the molded surface. The bottom of the object is hollow and was assembled from a flat back and a mold-made front. A female figure, seated frontally wearing a peplos like garment, draws aside a veil with her left hand and holds a lobed phiale tipped downward in her right. The veil protrudes from a thicker, cap-like headdresss. Her ears are marked by indistinct rounded earrings. A small mold-made figure of a deer stands beneath the phiale and adjoining her right leg. Her knees and lower legs are covered with a long garment that covers her ankles. Her feet rest upon a footstool. Below her left arm the surface of the throne extends outward. It is supported by a low molding which sits atop a smaller, rectangular support which finally sits upon a flat plinth. Numerous cracks and breaks suggest that the piece has been mended and restored. The figure was impressed from a worn mold.

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