Grave stele

Grave stele made of Pentelic marble and found in Omonia Square, Athens. A woman sitting on a stool extends her right hand to a standing relative, who holds it tenderly at the wrist and raises her other hand in a gesture of speech. At the left stands a girl lost in reflection. A small partridge pecks at the ground beneath the dead woman’s seat. The monument, which is known as the ‘stele of farewell’ originally had the form of a naiskos with a pediment, pilasters and pedestal. The work has a moving immediacy that is also found in other, smaller grave monuments, such as the lekythos inv. no. 3486.