Ἠλύσιον, A Consolatory Afterlife Vision - III

Right side: Athenian priests.

The right side shows an elderly bearded man in a three-quarter pose to left, head in profile.

He wears along thin chiton with short sleeves, which adheres onto his body and is arranged with few folds around the points of greatest projection. In his lowered right hand, the figure holds a sacrificial knife with a wide blade, which characterizes him as a priest. His head is individualized, almost portrait-like, with an aquiline nose and very pronounced eyebrows, which lend the face an intense gaze. His hair is rendered impressionistically on the calotte and ends in wavy strands at the temples. The beard, too, is carved impressionistically, except at the point where it grows from the cheeks, where it is rendered as a series of parallel vertical strokes.

 

Source: Kosmopoulou A., A Funerary Base from Kallithea

 

Pentelic marble base

Height: 83 cm; width: 31 cm; Length: 50 cm.

410 – 400 BC

From Kallithea, Athens

Athens, National Museum Inv. No. 4502

Done