The state in which the Marble Grave Stele of a Young Woman and Servant (36.11.1) stands at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is extraordinary. The museum dates the sculpture from around 400 to 390 B.C., which translates to the closing of the fifth century to the fourth century B.C. After purchase in 1936, courtesy of the Fletcher Fund, the Stele stands in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Greek and Roman Art sculpture galleries. The origin of the grave marker is traceable to sometime in 5000 B.C. According to Stanley Casson, the first inhabitants of the Cycladic Islands were first to create “fiddle-types” structures that were a most primitive representation of the human body (16). Apparently, in the creation process, the Cyclades would take a “simple rectangular slab” made entirely of marble before cutting out a stick figure by making indentations where appropriate (Casson 16). In other words, there was little to no distinctions between the final products, and as one would expect, the necks of such figures would remain elongated to differentiate the head from the rest of the body. However, as the Stele reveals, by 400 B.C, the Cycladic idols significantly improved in artistry. Concurrently, an observation of the woman and the servant will pave the way for the understanding if what they represent within the contexts of history, iconography, and formal studies. To that end, with the employment of works done to analyze this paper’s subject, the following segments serve the mentioned purposes.
Accordingly, the carving of the Stele is from Pentelic marble that was available near Athens and specifically, on Mount Pentelicus. As preserved, the marble structure stood at 70 1/16 inches height; as restored, it stands at a height of 74 inches and a width of 297/9 inches (Montebello 307). Now, while both the tip of the woman’s nose and part of her left leg are missing, her right hand and part of the drapery she wears are not spared either. However, and on a more positive note, the sides of the marble slab and the projecting base that has rough edges to suggest an unfinished touch are smooth. Perhaps the most notable feature of the thick base, or the plinth, is the asymmetry that is not horizontal but still sinks towards the left, directly beneath the girl’s foot. Additionally, there is the mentioned drapery that has some of its parts missing but makes up for it with the superbly chiseled outline. In The Techniques of Early Greek Sculpture Casson asserts that draperies on Greek statues relied on abrasives, and that explains the following observations (90). The superb work on the drapery manages to create contrasting dark shadows and lights. Therefore, when one looks at the figure, it is as though the material clings to subject’s body while portraying a transparency that hints on the body beneath.
The two figures have a sense of rhythmic movement despite the fact that the composition elicits silent pain [probably a sign of grief by the artist]. The larger one of the two rests in a crooked position as her eyes face above the little girl, and her upper body leans back to let her left leg stick outward beyond the hem of her dress. At this point, the mentioned transparency of the cloth gives a rippling effect that suggests a further movement of the limb; thus exaggerating the notion of movement in the sculpture. Note how the same drapery appears to lie carelessly on the woman with no sense of arrangement. How she casually holds the bunched folds of the dress to her waist depicts life as opposed to the reality that she is indeed dead. According to Coscia and Milleker in Light on Stone, the mentioned qualities are intentional as the family members of the deceased often sought to “include aspects of a person’s life” on his or her grave (99-100). Hence, a relief Stele would show a servant or pet and even in other times, such as in the case of the Stele of a Young Woman, a jewelry box. The marble makes up part of the grave monuments situated in a cemetery that lies on the outskirts of Karameikos, Athens (Coscia and Milleker 100). In yet another research on Athenian grave stelae, Kaltsas suggests that the war environments were a precursor to their emergence and popularity around 430-420 B.C. (23). Craftsmen placed great importance to the figures while seeking to give them a “harmonious composition” by constructing the slab broad enough with the support of two pilasters to mimic a temple (Kaltsas 23). Accordingly, the figure of the dead person occupied a significant portion of available space to leave little room for the depiction of whichever being that would escort them into death. In that sense, the social hierarchy remained intact for the dead aristocrats, the only ones able to afford the stelae in a society of slaves.
Finally, yet importantly, the iconographic component of this paper’s subject revolves around the gender-based ideologies and the domestic qualities stemming from Greek cultural norms only to merge and have it epitomized by the two females on the Stele. Apparently, the Greek nation had “deep-rooted” traditions that governed communities in all spheres of life, such as in artistry (Kaltsas 28). Consequently, the mentioned traits of grave stele designing, where the aspects of a person’s life determine the creation, hold the influence of societal expectations. Thus, if a man were to die, the carving of the marble slab would seek to depict masculine traits such as a warrior in full armor. On the contrary, if the deceased is female, the most likely course of action entails representing her performing wifely duties or acting within the boundaries set by society. That is why in the Marble Grave Stele of a Young Woman and Servant an unmarked and unopened box becomes one that contains jewelry as the women’s dresses cover their bodies except for the feet. Notably, the figures are both feminine and even so, the older one shows little to no concern over the younger female. The relevance of the note is twofold: shows the social margins that restricted inter-gender interactions and declared slaves the inferior of their masters.
Works Cited
Casson, Stanley. The Techniques of Early Greek Sculpture. Oxford: Oxford, 1933. Web. <https://archive.org/stream/techniqueofearly027955mbp#page/n7/mode/2up>.
Coscia Joseph, Milleker Elizabeth Johnston. Light on Stone: Greek and Roman Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art : a Photographic Essay. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003. Print.
Kaltsas, Nikolaos. Sculpture in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens. California: Getty Publications, 2002. Print.
Montebello, Philippe De. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art,1994. Print.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Marble Grave Stele of a Young Woman and Servant." n.d. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Web. 13 April 2016. <http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/253505>.
