portraiture, Greek
portraiture, Greek
- Sheila Dillon
Summary
Portrait statues were a major component of Greek sculptural production, and many of these statues were made by the most famous sculptors of Greek antiquity. A public honorific portrait statue was in fact the highest honour an individual could receive and as such was much coveted. However, as most of these monuments were of bronze, very few have survived. Given the absence of the statues themselves, we are left to reconstruct the history and appearance of Greek portraiture primarily through other kinds of evidence: later literary sources, Roman-period copies primarily of portrait heads, inscribed statue bases, decrees recording the decision to award an honorific portrait. Based on this evidence, it is clear that portrait statues were a prominent feature of the statuary landscape of Greek cities and sanctuaries, particularly in the Hellenistic period, when their numbers increased and the range of people represented by them came to include women and children.
Keywords
Subjects
- Greek Material Culture
Updated in this version
Article updated to reflect current scholarship. Digital materials added in.