Fragment of a Funerary Lekythos (Monument in the Shape of an Oil Jar)
Date:
4th century BCE
Artist:
Attributed to the Demagora Master Greek; Halai Aixonides, Athens
About this artwork
This stone fragment takes the shape of a lekythos, a small terracotta jar of oil that was often left at a grave just as we might leave flowers today. Inscriptions identify the three figures. The bearded man at left is named Leon and was from Halai (located northwest of Athens). He clasps hands with Demagora, who sits before him and is presumably his wife. Their daughter, Helike, stands behind her mother and watches the couple bid an eternal farewell, although it is unclear which of the three has died. Only prominent families would have had the means to immortalize their loved ones by having their names set in stone.
Fragment of a Funerary Lekythos (Monument in the Shape of an Oil Jar)
Place
Athens (Object made in)
Date
Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.
Katherine K. Adler Memorial Fund, Mr. and Mrs. Walter Alexander Classical Endowment Fund, Costa A. Pandaleon Greek Art Memorial Fund, and David P. Earle III Fund
Reference Number
2009.76
IIIF Manifest
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Bernhard Schmaltz, Untersuchungen zu den attischen Marmorlekythen (Berlin: Mann, 1970), pp. 30ff, Nr A 132, pl. 32.
Avgi Maria Proukakis, The Evolution of the Attic Marble Lekythoi, and Their Relation to the Problem of Identifying the Dead among the Figures Shown on the Funerary Reliefs, doctoral thesis, University of London, England, 1971, no. 116 [microform, 1971].
Christoph Clairmont, Classical Attic Tombstones, vol. 3 (1993), p. 146, no. 3.322; IGII.2, 5495a.
Corpus Inscriptonium Graecum II (2), 5495a.
Andreas Scholl, “Die antiken Skulpturen in Farnborough Hall sowie in Althorp House, Blenheim Palace, Lyme Park und Penrice Castle,” mit Beitragen von Rainer Braun Dagmar Grassinger, Irmgard Hiller, Claudia Klages und Anja Klocker, in Monumenta Artis Romanae XXIII, (Mainz: von Zabern, 1995), p. 86, note 22.
Andreas Scholl, Die attischen Bildfeldstelen des 4. Jhs. V. Chr., Untersuchungen zu den Kleinformatigen Grabreliefs in spätklassichen Athen (Berlin: Mann, 1996), p. 64, 398 ff, p. 377.
Art Institute of Chicago, Annual Report 2008-09 (Art Institute of Chicago, 2009), p. 19.
O.J. Sopranos, “Leon Halaieus: What His Tombstone Reveals about His Family,” unpublished manuscript, 2012, unpublished manuscript in curatorial object file, Department of Ancient and Byzantine Art, Art Institute of Chicago.
Karen B. Alexander, “From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Karen Manchester, Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), p. 33.
Karen Manchester, Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago; New York: Yale University Press, 2012), pp. 54-55 (cat. 7), 110, 111.
Art Institute of Chicago, Ancient Art Galleries, Gallery 155, 2009-February 2012.
Art Institute of Chicago, Of Gods and Glamour: The Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Art, Gallery 151, November 11, 2012-present.
The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, 1931 to 2009; sold, through Robert Haber as agent, to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2009.
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