Woman and Kneeling Girl from Myrina
Workshop of Tomb A, Myrina (active late 4th to early 3rd century BC) · Hellenistic period, c. 325-250 BC
A woman stands wrapped in a long chiton and a himation that she has drawn up over her head as a veil, her hair bound in a band, earrings in her ears. She rests one hand on a small plaque beside her, and at her feet a girl kneels, dressed in a chiton fastened with a brooch, with earrings and a bracelet. Look at the folds of the drapery, which the moulder rendered in soft, natural curves, and at the traces of green paint on the bands of the chiton and the edge of the himation, and black on the plaque. The group is twenty five centimetres high, moulded in two parts for the body and one for the head, with a round vent hole in the back.
Myrina, on the coast of Asia Minor opposite Lesbos, was one of the great centres of terracotta production in the Hellenistic period, and its cemeteries yielded thousands of figurines placed with the dead. This group came from tomb ninety seven, known as tomb A, one of the richest graves excavated by the French School at Athens in the early eighteen eighties. The finds were allotted to the Louvre in eighteen eighty three.
Did You Know? The two figures were found in tomb 97 at Myrina, so close in style to others from the same grave that scholars gave the anonymous maker the name Workshop of Tomb A.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.