Aristodica relief

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The Aristodica relief , also referred to in publications as the grave relief for Aristodica, Akesidamos and Sotadas , is a work of art from around 350 BC. The Cretan - attentive Naïskos - stele is in the antique collection in Schloss Wilhelmshöhe in Kassel and bears the inventory number Sk 149.

description

The relief is made from white, finely crystalline marble . The yellow-brown patinated stone is 86.5 centimeters high and 50 centimeters wide and 10 centimeters thick. The image field is 67 centimeters high and 38.5 centimeters wide, the relief depth reaches 5.5 centimeters at the most pronounced points.

The stone is largely in good condition, but the central acroter is broken. A baseboard sloping towards the rear is higher on the left than on the right. This baseboard is embossed for insertion into a base . It is unsmoothed on the front, the side edges were designed in tooth iron work . The back of the stone is roughly peeled with the round iron . The image field was processed more carefully.

Antenna pillars that taper towards the top flank the relief image. The slightly protruding capitals have a low architrave on which the name inscriptions ΑΚΕΣΙΔΑΜΟΣ, ΣΩΤΑΔΑΣ and ΑΡΙΣΤΟΔΙΚΑ can be read. Above it is a flat, empty gable with a geisa . There are simplified palmette nudes at the corners and on the top of the gable .

Some of the figures in the relief image protrude beyond the boundary of the antenna pillars. On the left stands or strides, turned to the right, Akesidamos, a no longer young man with a full beard and curly hair. He looks into the eyes of Aristodica , who is sitting opposite him on a dipro, with slightly bowed head and extends his right hand. His right arm is bare, and his ankle-length robe is folded under his chest. In his left hand, which is raised to chest level, he is holding a stick or staff. In the middle is the upper body of Sotada, who is standing further back and who is also looking at Aristodica. Unlike Akesidamos, he is clean-shaven and is apparently still of a young age. His coat covers both shoulders.

It can be seen that Aristodika is the main character of the group. With her head slightly raised, she returns the two men's looks. Her face is shown in profile, the hair is held in a wavy hairstyle by a ribbon. Similar to the other two figures, the upper body is shown in a three-quarter view. Aristodika wears a chiton with buttoned half-sleeves and a himation that hangs over the left side of the woman and the seat cushion of the chair. Part of this cloak lies pushed together on Aristodica's lap, whose legs, covered by the robes, may have crossed one another. A footstool in front of her chair is only hinted at. Both Aristodika and Akesidamos are apparently dressed in soft shoes.

The name inscriptions in Doric dialect on the architrave are above the heads of the figures. They are fleetingly engraved. Because of these inscriptions, Naumann already considered the origin of the relief from the non-Attic region in 1981, which was later supported by the discovery of the alleged origin of the stone from Crete.

Comparable works of art

In terms of the arrangement and type of the figures, the Aristodica relief can be compared primarily with two Attic Grabnaïskoi that are in the Athens National Archaeological Museum : the Phanagora stele (Nat. Mus. 729) and the Lysistrate stele (Nat. Mus. 3657 ).

The bearded male figure on the Phanagora stele shows clear parallels to Akesidamos in terms of posture, clothing, hair and beard costume, but is slightly more turned into profile and has a different draping of the coat. The figure of Sotadas on the Aristodika relief corresponds to the central figure on the Phanagora stele with the baby, who also wears her cloak around her shoulders like Sotadas. The Lysistrate stele also has such a central figure, which, however , is shown en face .

In all three depictions, the main female character is shown sitting on a chair with a pillow and turned legs. The draping of the folds of the robes around the abdomen and the mantle strips hanging down on the dipro's with the same hem and the same bow and draw folds around the legs and feet are very similar in all three cases. In contrast to Phanagora, however, lysistrates and aristodica are bareheaded; the position of the upper body is slightly different in the three reliefs.

In contrast to the two reliefs in Athens, the tomb for Aristodika appears simplified in some places: the anthems are less developed, the acroter on the ridge is only outlined, the left hand of the aristodica, in contrast to the left hands of the female figures, is on both of them other reliefs are not hidden in the mantle and the stance is only hinted at. Peter Gercke attests that the group has a "flatter, somewhat doughy shape" and a "shallower depth" and concludes from the similarities and differences that the Aristodica relief must have been made with knowledge of the late classical sepulchral art of Athens, but probably after one in Crete Attic pattern or a pre-drawn blank from the workshop from which the other two grave monuments originate. He doesn't dare to decide whether an Athenian sculptor moved to Crete and established himself there or whether the Athens workshop sent prefabricated blanks to Crete. In any case, he comes to the conclusion: "The Aristodika stele testifies to the far-reaching and intense effect of this Attic art form of the classical period, which erected permanent and exemplary monuments in the middle-class family portrait of the enthroned deceased woman and mother among their closest relatives."

history

The circumstances of the find do not seem to be well documented. Allegedly the stone was found on the south coast of the island of Crete. In 1978 it was acquired in the Frankfurt art trade and from then on exhibited on loan with the inventory number ALg 243 in Wilhelmshöhe Palace. At that time, the stone was cleaned and hung. The time when a small repair to the left breast of the Aristodica came from is unknown.

The stone passed into the possession of the Antikensammlung in 2007 as a gift from the Dierichs family company.

literature

Web links

  • Peter Gercke, grave relief for Aristodika, Akesidamos and Sotadas on antikeskulptur.museum-kassel.de (the text is identical to Gercke / Zimmermann-Elseify 2007, pp. 324–326)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ F. Naumann, Coll.Dierichs 1981, No. 80, quoted from Gercke / Zimmermann-Elseify 2007, p. 324.
  2. ^ A b Peter Gercke and Nina Zimmermann-Elseify, Antique Sculptures. Antikensammlung Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel , Mainz 2007, ISBN 978-3-8053-3781-6 , p. 326