Giustiniani stele

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The Giustiniani stele as it is today in the Altes Museum

The so-called stele Giustiniani , also Giustiniani stele , is an ancient Greek grave stele on which a young girl is depicted in relief. The marble stele was built around 460 BC. It was probably made on the Greek island of Paros and is now in the collection of antiquities in Berlin in the Altes Museum . Because of its good preservation and high artistic quality, it is one of the most important works in the Berlin Collection of Antiquities.

origin

The Giustiniani stele was named after its previous owners, the Venetian Giustiniani family. Most of the collection items were acquired in Greece. Parts of the collection, including the 1.43-meter-high stele , came to the Antikensammlung in Berlin in 1897.

The location of the stele is unknown. It was probably made in Paros. The material speaks for this assumption. Archaeologists consider the gray-white, large-crystalline marble to be typical of the Cycladic island of Paros.

Form and representation

The flat stele has an upright rectangular shape. It tapers slightly from bottom to top and changes its width from 46 cm to 40 cm. The work is crowned by a large volute palmette . This form has been around since the late 6th century BC. Commonly used for Greek grave steles. Although the relief is not worked very deep, the heavy folds of the robe suggest a greater spatial depth.

A girl is shown in profile with her head bowed. Her gaze is directed to a can, a pyxis , in her left hand. Between the thumb and forefinger of her raised right hand, she is holding something, probably grains of incense. Because the cylindrical lid lying on the floor, which could be slipped over the can, speaks for a volatile fragrance as its content, which the girl sacrifices to drop towards the lid. She is dressed in an ungirded peplos . The movement of the body is only slightly visible under the heavy woolen material. The peplos is open on the side and shows a flap that falls down to the hips. The open peplos is typical of unmarried girls ( Parthenos ) in Greek visual art . This is also supported by the hairstyle, in which the hair is tied high with a ribbon wound around the head several times. The robe was held together on the shoulder with a pin. A drill hole at the point shows that a metal needle was attached here. Metal jewelry was also used on the earlobe. She wears sandals on her feet, only the soles of which are visible. The lacing was probably painted with paint.

Deceased girls like the one depicted, who had outgrown childhood but not yet married, were particularly mourned, as has been passed down from inscriptions and epigrams . Thus, one can understand the beauty of the portrayed symbolically for the life that has just blossomed but also ended early again.

Dating

The way in which the peplos is designed corresponds to the representation on the metopes of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia , which was built around 460 BC. Can be dated BC. The standing motif with the slightly projected, relieved left leg also points to this time. The design of the volute palmette also fits into the period around the middle of the 5th century. v. Thus the grave stele belongs to the strict style of classical Greek art, which placed great emphasis on ponderation (body movement, play and support leg ). The pensive inclination of the head is characteristic of the pictorial art of the Greek classical period and is regarded as a pictorial formula for inner movement.

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Inventory number Berlin SK 1482 (K 19)
  2. ↑ Ulrike Theissen: Parthenos, Nymphe, Gyne. Female costume iconography as a bearer of meaning in the 5th century BC In Greece. V&R unipress, Göttingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-89971-556-9 .

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '15 "  N , 13 ° 23' 47"  E