Statue of a Kore. The "Kore with Almond Eyes"
Inventory number
Ακρ. 674
Artist
Attic workshop
Category
Sculpture
Period
Archaic Period
Date
Around 500 BC
Dimensions
Height: 0.92 m
Material
Marble from Paros
Location
Archaic Acropolis Gallery
This Kore was discovered in 1888 southwest of the Parthenon and was reassembled from four fragments. The head, right hand, parts of the hair and the folds on her right thigh were constructed from separate blocks of marble. Delicate and expressive, with her features highlighted with colour, this Kore is one of the most beautiful statues found on the Acropolis. Due to her almond-shaped eyes, which are strongly accentuated with paint, she is known as the "Kore with Almond Eyes".
She wears a long-sleeved chiton, with a short himation thrown over the top, which passes obliquely under the left arm, while secured on the right with small relief buttons. Her garments were richly decorated with painted rosettes, most likely in light blue, green and red colour and elaborate meanders painted in the same hues. The colors we see today are not the original hues and the intended blue of the chiton’s upper part, has oxidized through time and now appears as green. In her right hand the Kore would have held an offering to the goddess while with her left she was likely pulling aside her chiton to facilitate her step.
Her hairdo is the typical of the archaic Korai with her long hair falling on her back while three curled locks frame each side of her face and spill to the front. The reddish-brown colour we see today is a result of oxidation or constitutes the undercoat over which the final hue was applied. On her head she has a stephane with a colourful meander, part of which was made separately and then added, probably due to a repair, and on her ears, she wears round earrings decorated with red rosettes on a light blue background. The bronze stem projecting from the top of her head is a meniskos.
The Kore's features are highlighted with colour. Black is used for the eyebrows, the contour of the eyes and their pupils; brown for the irises; and red for the lips. The understatement of her expression, without the "archaic smile" of older Korai, is suggestive of early Classical art and the so-called "Severe Style".
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