Marble Statue of a Woman in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 2007

Marble statue of a woman
Greek, Attic, late 4th century BC

Accession # 10.210.21

This large figure was probably part of a group of funerary statues that were placed within a deep, covered niche. The back of the drapery is not carefully finished as it would not have been visible. The production of such elaborate grave monuments with large-scale statues came to an end in Attica in 317 or 307 BC when Demetrios of Phaleron, the governor of Athens, issued a law prohibiting ostentatious display by wealthy families.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.