Found in women’s graves, bronze mirrors were luxurious personal possessions used in life and then buried with the dead for use in the afterlife. One side was highly polished; the other side was usually engraved with a mythic scene, such as this one, which shows the goddess Eos carrying the body of her son, Memnon, who was killed by the hero Achilles. The episode was taken from Homer’s The Iliad, the epic poem that narrates the Greek siege and eventual defeat of the city of Troy.
Date
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Art Institute of Chicago, Myth and Legend in Classical Art, Gallery 101A, February 28, 1987 - August 26, 1987.
Art Institute of Chicago, The Human Figure in Greek and Roman Art: From the Permanent Collection (Part 2), Gallery 120A, January 13, 1989 - February 21, 1990.
Art Institute of Chicago, Ancient Art Galleries, Gallery 156, April 20, 1994 - February 6, 2012.
Art Institute of Chicago, Of Gods and Glamour: The Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Art, Gallery 152, November 11, 2012 - November 1, 2018 and March 30, 2023 - present.
R. Zeitz collection, London [according to note in curatorial object file]; sold to Michael Ward, Inc. New York by 1983 [excerpt from dealer catalog in curatorial object file]; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1984.
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