Top left: Relief from Megara showing Hermes leading three Nymphs in dance ...
Image from Svoronos
| Collection: | Athens, National Archaeological Museum |
| Title: | Votive relief to the nymphs |
| Context: | From Eleusis |
| Findspot: | Found at Eleusis |
| Summary: | Pan leading three nymphs |
| Object Function: | Votive |
| Material: | Marble |
| Sculpture Type: | Stele, relief-decorated |
| Category: | Single monument |
| Style: | Hellenistic |
| Technique: | Medium relief |
| Original or Copy: | Original |
| Date: | ca. 300 BC - ca. 200 BC |
| Dimensions: | H. 0.27 m; W. 0.35 m |
| Scale: | Miniature (pictorial field) |
| Region: | Attica |
| Period: | Hellenistic |
Subject Description: Pan, the goat-man god of the woodland, advances 3/4-view to the left, behind a small rectangular altar. Three nymphs, shown in a variety of poses but all draped in himatia over chitons, dance while they advance to the left. They form a chain as they hold each other's garments.
Form & Style:
The stele is oval, and the frame takes the form of a cave (with undulating edges on both sides). The cave is decorated with images of five animals, one of which is a ram. In the lower left of the frame is the bearded head of a river god, perhaps Kephissos, shown in profile to the right.
A large hole, from which the relief was presumably hung, appears in the center of the relief, above the nymphs.
Condition: Complete
Sources Used:
Other Bibliography: BCH 5 (1881) 349-57 pl. 7; AthMitt 5 (1880) 359.10; A. Furtwängler, AthMitt 3 (1878) 20