Collection: Athens, Acropolis Museum
Title: Lyons Kore
Context: From Athens, Acropolis
Findspot: Excavated at Athens, Acropolis (lower part and left arm)
Summary: A woman wearing a chiton, a himation, and a polos, and holding a dove
Object Function: Votive?
Material: Marble
Sculpture Type: Free-standing statue: kore
Category: Separated fragments
Style: High Archaic
Technique: In-the-round
Original or Copy: Original
Date: ca. 550 BC - ca. 540 BC
Dimensions: H. 0.65 m
Scale: Under life-size
Region: Attica
Period: High Archaic

Subject Description: A woman with large shoulder wearing a chiton, a thin himation draped diagonally over her self shoulder and arm, and a polos, decorated with an incised lotus and palmette frieze. She wears her hair arranged in scallops over her forehead, and long crinkly locks, three each falling over either shoulder, but first tucked behind her ears which are adorned with dangling earrings. She holds her left hand on her upper thigh, but her right hand at waist level, supporting a dove, which is presumably a gift to the goddess.

Condition: Fragmentary

Condition Description: The upper part is restored from the portion known in the Lyons Museum. The upper legs are formed from rejoined fragments; the statue below the knees is missing.

Material Description: Pentelic, according to Brouskari

Other Notes: This kore is named for the fact that a fragment constituting her upper part (restored in plaster in the Acropolis Museum), was earlier known in Marseilles (1719), from where it was transported to the Lyons Museum.

Sources Used: Brouskari 1974, 60-61, fig. 108

Other Bibliography: Richter 1968, 57 no. 89, figs. 275-81; Agora XI, 12; Karouzos 1961, 44A 2, 45; Lippold 1950, 78 n. 7; Langlotz & Schuchhardt 1943, pls. 8, 9b; Langlotz in Langlotz & Schrader 1939, 66 no. 25, pls. 21, 36-37; Payne 1936, 14, pl. 22; BrBr, 561