Nike Adjusting Her Sandal
About 410 BC
A winged woman bends forward on one leg to loosen the strap of her sandal, and her thin dress, pressed against her by the movement, slips off one shoulder and clings to her whole body as if it were wet. She is a Nike, a personification of victory, and she comes from the marble parapet that once ran around the edge of the bastion of the temple of Athena Nike to stop visitors falling off. The parapet was carved with a whole procession of these winged figures leading bulls to sacrifice and setting up trophies of captured arms before seated figures of Athena, and this slab is by far the most famous of them.
The subject is trivial, a moment of undressing before a sacrifice, but the carving is the height of what Athenian sculptors could do in the last years of the fifth century. The drapery is cut so finely that it seems transparent, with long ridges and shallow valleys that catch the light differently from every angle. The style is called the wet drapery style, and it was developed in the Parthenon pediments a generation earlier. Here it is used for pure delight. Look at how the wing, now mostly broken, once framed the figure, and at the way the balance of the pose, awkward in real life, is made to seem effortless.
The parapet was built around 410 BC, during the Peloponnesian War, when Athens needed images of victory more than ever. The sculptor is unknown, though the names of Kallimachos and Paionios have been suggested. The slabs were found scattered on the Acropolis in the nineteenth century, and several fragments are elsewhere, but this one has been the museum's emblem of Classical grace for more than a century. Stand to one side to see the depth of the relief and the way the body pushes forward out of the stone.
Did You Know? The parapet she comes from was simply a safety railing to stop people falling off the bastion of the temple.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.