About the Work

A finely carved fragment of an Attic marble grave stele carved in high relief, depicting a female figure in profile within an architectural frame. The figure of the young woman faces towards her right, with her right hand raised towards her shoulder. The fingers of the raised hand are curved, as if holding an object – Clairmont suggests that she may originally have been holding a painted object that has since worn away. Her long, wavey hair is parted in the centre and held back in a long braid over her neck and back. She wears a chiton buttoned on the upper arm under a peplos of heavier material, belted around her waist, and a back mantle fastened with large circular brooches at the shoulders. Her clothes identify her as a parthenos, or unmarried young woman. The figure is framed by antae supporting a horizontal architrave with staggered antefixes surmounting the tiled roof. The architrave is carved with a single line of inscription recording the name of the woman to whom the stele is dedicated: Medeia.

Within ancient Greek society, parthenoi occupied a liminal space between childhood and adulthood. Being unmarried, they were not seen as having fully transitioned into their adult roles as wives and mothers. Their importance is attested by this fine funerary monument, and Roccos theorises that the death of a parthenos represented both a personal loss and a societal one – preventing any possibility of their future children furthering the Athenian cause. Surviving stelae representing parthenoi are comparatively rare, comprising only 4% of Clairmont’s extensive corpus of Attic funerary reliefs.

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Provenance

Previously with Theodoros A. Zoumpoulakis (active c. 1912-1960s), 13 Edward Law, Athens, by at least 1923.
Private Collection of Joseph Brummer (1883-1947), New York, inv. no. P801, acquired from the above c. 20 November 1923, and transferred to the Brummer Gallery collection 31 December 1928, kept in house vault from May 1934, accompanied by inventory card and photographs.
Thence by descent to his brother, Ernest Brummer (1891-1964), Paris and New York, photographed by Schiff on 22 April 1948, accompanied by handwritten inventory list from 1964 and post-mortem appraisal.
Thence by descent his wife, Ella Laszlo Baché Brummer (1900-1999), New York, from 1964 to 1973, then Durham, North Carolina, until 1979.
Sold at: The Ernest Brummer Collection, vol. II, Spink & Son and Galerie Koller, Zurich, 16-19 October 1979, Lot 601.
With Robin Symes Ltd., London, acquired from the above sale.
Private Collection, Belgium, acquired from the above on 31 October 1979.
Thence by descent.
Sold at: Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art, Sotheby’s, London, 4 December 2018, Lot 14.
Private Collection of Bassam Alghanim (b. 1952), New York, acquired from the above and kept in the James F.D. Lanier House, New York City, until 2022.
ALR: S00256889, with IADAA Certificate, this item has been checked against the Interpol database.

Literature

Published
Joseph Brummer Collection Part III, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 8-9 June 1949, Lot 419.
The Ernest Brummer Collection, vol. II, Spink & Son and Galerie Koller, Zurich, 16-19 October 1979, Lot 601.
Christoph W. Clairmont, Classical Attic Tombstones, vol. 1 (Kilchberg, 1993), p. 308, no. 1.310.
Johannes Bergemann, Demos und Thanatos (Munich, 1997), pp. 173, 236, no. 574.
Linda Jones Roccos, ‘Back-Mantle and Peplos. The Special Costume of Greek Maidens in 4th-Century Funerary and Votive Reliefs’, Hesperia, 69:2 (April-June 2000), pp. 237 (note 23), 255, no. 40.
Hélène Bectarte, ‘Le costume de l’épouse dans l’art funéraire attique de l’époque classique’, in Chemin faisant. Mythes, cultes et société en Grèce ancienne. Mélanges en l’honneur de Pierre Brulé, ed. Lydie Bodiou et al., (Rennes, 2009), pp. 237, 245, fig. 1.
Katia Margariti, The Death of the Maiden in Classical Athens (Oxford, 2017), p. 390, no. E39, pl. 36.
Katia Margariti, ‘Lament and Death instead of Marriage. The Iconography of Deceased Maidens on Attic Grave Reliefs of the Classical Period’, Hesperia, 87:1 (January-March 2018), p. 134, no. 25.
Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art, Sotheby’s, London, 4 December 2018, Lot 14.
The Devoted Classicist: The Private Collection of a New York Antiquarian, Christie’s, New York, 6 October 2022, Lot 17.