Marble torso of a figure

Technical analysis: Multiband imaging, optical microscopy


The figure is carved from a single piece of fine- grained white marble. The head, neck and lower legs are nonextant. The remaining fragment, consisting otorsoe toro and upper legs, has break edges at the base of the neck and just above the knees. Much of the surface, including the break edges, is covered with buff to brown-colored accretions. Parts of the surface are deeply weathered although areas beneath the accretions appear in very good condition. Some of the accretions appear to be in the form of rootlets. There are fine surface scratches throughout. There are chips just under the proper right breast and on the proper left "hand" as well as a gouge on the proper right elbow. The chips appear to have been coated with a resin and toned with pigments in modern times. On the reverse on the proper right shoulder is a broad gouge and a scratch next to it.


The torso has angular sloping shoulders and arms that are folded across the belly, left above right in the canonical way. The breasts are placed slightly low on the chest and the torso is rather elongated with rounded hips. The pubic area is defined by a horizontal groove at the top and the fulsome thighs below. A deep vertical groove separates the legs at the front and back. On the back, a shallow vertical groove defines the spine. In profile, one sees how straight the back is, the slight curve of the legs and the angular modeling of the arms, the flatness of the stomach and the protruding breasts.


Pat Getz-Gentle attributes the torso fragment to the Copenhagen Master, a Cycladic artist without any provenanced works, who she believes was from Naxos.(1) She suggests that the fragment may have been found on Keros like the works from the Keros Hoard.


Seán Hemingway, Dorothy Abramitis, Federico Carò



(1) Pat Getz-Gentle, Personal Styles in Early Cycladic Sculpture (The University of Wisconsin Press, 2001), p. 176, pls. 62-63, [8].