Marble female figure

Technical analysis: Multiband imaging, optical microscopy, X-ray radiography
This fine-grained, white marble figure is complete except for the front of the right foot, which has been restored, and the connection between the two ankles. Horizontal breaks at both knees and the neck have been mended with adhesive reinforced with modern metal pins. The joins were filled and toned. The backward-tilted head is lyre-shaped with a rounded chin, flat crown, and small triangular nose in relief that is set high on the facial plane. There are faint ghosts of a polos and hair mass at the back of the head. Traces of dark lozenge shapes, some with centered dots that may indicate pupils, are noticeable on the left side of the face and around the mouth. There are also traces of linked lozenges across the upper chest. A curved shallow groove at the front and back of the figure offsets the long cylindrical neck from the head, and a similar groove that is curved at the front and v-shaped at the back separates the neck from the torso. Rounded shoulders slope toward arms that are tightly folded, left over right, above the abdomen and below rounded breasts carved in low relief. Shallow incisions delineate four fingers on each arm. Shallow horizontal incisions below the belly indicate the pubic triangle.

A deep vertical groove at the front and back delineates the joined legs, and short horizontal incisions describe the knees and the front of the ankles. The feet arch downward and four faint vertical incisions on each indicate toes.


Pat Getz-Preziosi attributes this Late Spedos type figure to her Naxos Museum Sculptor. Similarities include the figure’s long, broad-cheeked face with a narrow nose positioned high on the facial plane, breasts carved nearly at shoulder level, thick forearms with incised fingers of unequal length, and a diminished mid-section.(1)


Georgios Gavalas, Sandy MacGillivray, Dorothy Abramitis, and Elizabeth Hendrix


(1) Getz-Preziosi, Pat. 1987. Sculptors of the Cyclades: Individual and Tradition in the Third Millennium B.C., pp. 95-98, 159 no. 9, pls. 31–33, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.