Statuette of a Woman Wearing a Peplos

Standing in repose, this female statuette rests her weight on her right leg and extends her more relaxed left leg slightly forward, breaking the vertical folds of her peplos (dress). Her right hand rests on her hip; her left arm is bent sharply at the elbow and held beneath the overfold of her garment, with the hidden hand raising the fabric hear the neckline. Her face is rather austere, with heavy features, a prominent jaw, and broad neck. The soft fabric of the sakkos, or head-dress, that covers her head is patterned with circles and zigzags and forms a series of soft ridges down the back.

The position of the figure, with her left hand hidden beneath the overfold of her peplos, is known in examples of bronze mirror karyatids (female figures that formed the handles of such mirrors). The type of attachment on this statuette’s head, however, suggests that she supported a thymiaterion (incense burner) or a candelabrum rather than a mirror. The woman's erect posture and the columnar folds of her garment would have suited this function well. A portion of the cylindrical support that connected the figure to the implement above remains, protruding from the top of her head.

This statuette’s distinctive pose recalls one of the figures in a famous painting of the Nekyia (Descent into the Underworld) by the celebrated Classical painter Polygnotos (active about 475-447 B.C.). According to the Greek writer Pausanias, the painting showed Eriphyle, an Argive heroine, reaching under her garment to touch the beautiful necklace for which she had betrayed her husband. The Getty figure’s stance, dress, and heavy facial features are also characteristics associated with larger works created by Argive sculptors.