#chryselephantine

Acrylic painting by American artist Lynn Curlee of Pheidias' 38ft gold and ivory masterpiece of Athena that stood in the Parthenon 🏛

Palaikastro Kouros

The Kouros statuette (1480-25 B.C.). Composite of ivory, gold, serpentine, rock crystal, wood and Egyptian blue, 54 x 18.5 cm. Archaeological Museum of Siteia (ph. Olaf Tausch)

Often interpreted as a cult image, the excavators found the kouros burned, broken, desecrated, and its pieces spread across the building no. 5 (where its basis/plinth was also revealed)

The hands, feet, & hair preserve incredible craftsmanship, complete with minutely rendered musculature & vascularity! The hair presents equal skill, carved from serpentine & attached to the head!

This young male figurine from Palaikastro is the earliest known example of chryselephantine statuary type.

Its violent destruction and the fact that cult statues would only start appearing in temples much later, suggests that it was an aberration which, in the contexts of the post-traumatic stress related to the Santorini eruption, could be interpreted as a "crisis cult."

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/aegean-art1/minoan/a/statuette-of-a-male-figure-the-palaikastro-kouros

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-Palaikastro-Kouros-courtesy-L-H-Sackett-J-A-MacGillivray_fig1_309302935

ivory face of a chryselephantine statue (possibly a 1st century CE Roman copy of a 4th century BCE Greek original)

This face, as well as other ivory fragments, were recovered in 2003 by the Carabinieri Art Squad (Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale) from an internationally-known black market antiquities trader. The ivory artifacts were first looted in 1994 from a Roman villa (probably Anguillara Sabazia). Following several years of investigation, complex legal proceedings, and damage to the artifacts as a result of constant movement, these ivory goods are now part of Italy's cultural heritage. This particular item is believed to have been cut from the tusk of a very large male Loxodonta africana elephant.

Art Deco and Other Figures :: Bryan Catley

Salammbô chez Mathô, Je t'aime ! Je t'aime (Salammbo and Matho, I love you! I love you!), 1895. A small group; bronze, ivory, gold and turquoises by Théodore Rivière (1857-1912).

Musée d'Orsay,Paris.

"Ah! forgive me! I am a scoundrel, and viler than scorpions, than mire and dust! Just now while you were speaking your breath passed across my face, and I rejoiced like a dying man who drinks lying flat on the edge of a stream. Crush me, if only I feel your feet! curse me, if only I hear your voice! Do not go! have pity! I love you! I love you!"