Relief with Medea and the Peliaden (Berlin SK 925)
The relief with Medea and the Peliads is a Roman copy of an ancient Greek relief , the original of which dates back to around 420/10 BC. Is dated. It is now in the Berlin Collection of Antiquities (inventory number Sk 925 [K 186]).
The relief of Pentelic marble has been known since the Renaissance . It can be traced back to 1550 in the possession of Cardinal Niccolò Ridolfi . Then it was in the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence , then in the Palazzo Niccolini also in Florence. In 1828 it was acquired in Rome for the Berlin Collection of Antiquities. After many changes of location, including the exhibition in the Pergamon Museum , it is currently being presented in the last few decades in the 2010 newly designed exhibition of Italian, Etruscan and Roman antiquities in the Altes Museum .
The relief shows Medea on the left , holding a pyxis in her hands that she is about to open. She is dressed in a double chiton , a tiara on her head and shoes. The other two young women are the daughters of the mythical Thessalian king Pelias , the Peliads . The middle figure wears a simple chiton that falls low and leaves her left breast uncovered . She has gathered her curly hair at the back of her head and tied it into a round braid. She is bent over a tripod kettle that she may have just put there. Her sister, who is standing on the right edge of the picture, wears a chiton with a flap. She seems absent and has turned her head away from the action. Your gaze goes nowhere. She supported her right elbow on her left hand, which in turn was hidden under the flap of the chiton. She is holding an olive branch in her hand. As can be seen from other replicas of the work, the young woman originally held a sword, which, however, had been reworked by a modern artist, probably to take the edge off the scene. Are the three women in the process of preparing a rejuvenating bath in which Pelias should be rejuvenated. Before that it should have been dismembered. But every ancient observer knew that this was only Medea's revenge on Pelias for injustice suffered and that she lets the daughters kill their father. In addition to the reworking of the sword, other details have also been modernized.
Today we know that this relief includes three other reliefs with a similar layout and structure, which have also been preserved in Roman copies. They too show attempts by people and heroes to become immortal. It is believed that the four parts belonged to an altar that stood on the Athens agora . Another suggestion for reconstruction assumes that the four friezes belonged to the substructure of a tomb. The topic is not surprising at the time of its creation, as the dates of the deaths of Euripides and Sophocles , who dealt with such subjects in their tragedies , fall during this period .
literature
- Max Kunze : Relief depicting Medea and the Peliaden . In: State Museums in Berlin. Prussian cultural property. Antikensammlung (Ed.): The Antikensammlung in the Pergamon Museum and in Charlottenburg . von Zabern, Mainz 1992, ISBN 3-8053-1187-7 , pp. 134-135.
- Medea and the Peliaden . In: Königliche Museen zu Berlin (Ed.), Alexander Conze (preliminary work): Description of the ancient sculptures with the exclusion of the Pergamene finds . Spemann, Berlin 1891, urn : nbn: de: bsz: 16-diglit-34567 , pp. 375–376. (Directory No. 925)