Ionic Freeze

Title: Ionic Freeze
Repository: British Museum
Alternative: The Parthenon Sculptures Temple-reliefs North Frieze, Block XLVII Sculpture 325
Creator: unknown Pheidias
Photographer: Lowenstam, Steven
Creator Display: unknown Ancient Greek (artist); Phidias (Greek designer, ca. 490-430 BCE)
Description: Marble relief (Block XLVII) from the North frieze of the Parthenon. The frieze shows the procession of the Panathenaic festival, the commemoration of the birthday of the goddess Athena. Like the southern branch of the procession, the northern branch comprises mounted horsemen, chariots, elders, musicians, pitcher-bearers, tray-bearers and figures leading sacrificial victims. As in the South frieze, so in the North the cavalcade comprised sixty riders. Whereas in the South these are carved over twenty-four blocks, in the North they are compressed into nineteen blocks. The groups of riders are not divided equally, as they are in the South. Dress varies from figure to figure. Some are heavily draped in mantle and tunic, while others are all but naked. Some ride bareheaded, while others wear a distinctive form of cap or a helmet. Metal reins, which are now lost, were inserted in drill-holes. Block XLVII shows a scene of preparation for the cavalcade that lies ahead, echoing the major theme of the West frize. Its return on the West side is carved with a marshal. On the right a boy, wearing drapery over his shoulder, is tying a girdle around the waist of the waiting horseman, dressed in a tunic. The heads of the youth and the boy are both dipped, just as the head of the horse, waiting patiently by. On the left a figure, wearing a cloak, stands by his horse, which he restrains with his right arm, while his left is raised to the head with the index finger extended. His head is turned back to his unprepared companions. A fragment, the horse’s head, is in the Acropolis Museum, Athens. --The British Museum Pryce, F N; Smith, A H, Catalogue of Greek Sculpture in the British Museum, I-III, London, BMP, 1892; enkins, Ian, The Parthenon Frieze, London, BMP, 1994
View: Front
Coverage: Athens, Periféreia Protevoúsis, Greece (creation) Parthenon, Athens, Periféreia Protevoúsis, Greece (discovery)
Temporal: 438-432 BCE
Subject: Kouroi--Lycippus Parthenon Phidias Sculpture I
Style Period: Classical
Work Type: friezes (ornamental areas)
Date: -0438/-0432
Identifier: Lowenstam_VRC_03385
Item Locator: Box 8, Section 22-23
Rights: In Copyright
Dc Rights Holder: University of Oregon
Local Collection Name: Steven Lowenstam Collection
Type: Image
Format: image/tiff
Material: marble | painted
Set: Lowenstam Collection of Ancient Western Art and Archaeology
Primary Set: Lowenstam Collection of Ancient Western Art and Archaeology
Institution: University of Oregon
Id Current Repository: 1816,0610.46.b