A Statue from an Attic Tomb

Extract

The reliefs upon the tombstones of the Attic cemetery of the Ceramicus have long been among the most familiar of the products of Greek art, and have enjoyed a popularity, even beyond their artistic merit, because of their direct appeal to a common basis of human sentiment—mentem mortalia tangunt. The sculptors who made these reliefs did not probably, for the most part, enjoy any very exalted position in their profession. The artistic quality of the work varies greatly; while some of it preserves the best traditions of the school that made the Parthenon frieze, some is comparatively commonplace and mechanical. There is little reason to suppose that any of the extant reliefs are from the hands of a distinguished sculptor. We know, however, that well known sculptors were sometimes employed on works to be set up over tombs. Pliny expressly says of Praxiteles ‘opera sunt eius in Ceramico’, and Pausanias mentions a statue by Praxiteles of a soldier standing beside his horse, set up just outside the Dipylon Gate. There is therefore good reason for looking for statues of the highest artistic value among those set up as monuments over tombs. The reason why they have not hitherto attracted the same general interest as the reliefs that served the same purpose is partly their much more limited number, partly the difficulty of recognising them with certainty.