Demeter, goddess of fertility and the harvest, taken from the temple site of Eleusis
I went down a 2-hour long rabbit hole trying to find this picture - as I've read countless theses/articles on archaeological finds at Eleusis, have been to Eleusis and its museum, and have never seen this relief before. Of course I could be mistaken, but every result for this image is either not sourced (one Italian Facebook post sourced it coming from the "web", thanks for nothing), or sourced very vaguely and contradictory. Some say it's from a museum in Rome, one mentioned le Louvre, and some mentioned Eleusis - without a source, a date of how old it is, where it's located right now, where it was found, etc.
(One said it was "above a temple door at Eleusis." Which one?? There's none standing. And most reliefs and statues left at Eleusis are broken, none intact - yet this one looks brand-new, untouched by weather, age, or violence).
I finally found the closest image - an exclusive restaurant/club in San Francisco has it over their door.
The fourth picture in this article shows it:
Edwin Boger, valet parker, waits for arrivals at the entrance to Villa Taverna in San Francisco, Calif. on Tuesday, September 8, 2009.Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle
I genuinely have not been able to find it anywhere else - I've looked through museum catalogues, articles, neowebsites but this is the only result. It even has the same weathering on the sides, same coloring - everything.
The fact that peer-reviewed articles and university websites showed this image with a vague description is worrying. In an age of copyright issues and AI stealing work, sourcing your images is just as important as any other literary sources, because now this echo-chamber has sourced a modern American relief of Demeter as being ancient.
No hate at the OP whatsoever, I just couldn't let this image go. If somehow I missed something (which is very possible), please let me know if this is a copy of an original, genuine ancient relief and where that one might be.
OP here, I apologize for any distress I may have caused in posting the original image. It's highly likely that relief is not from Eleusis, but I stumbled across this article which I will link here, that shows a different, possibly older (and maybe Roman) version of the relief, photographed in the 1860s. The article really does not provide all that much information about it other than the fact that it was held in a museum, and spends more time talking about the photography part and not the actual relief itself. So, I will continue to do research as to where the hell this relief actually came from, but I apologize for not being diligent enough before posting it originally. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1348858/bas-relief-portion-of-frieze-photograph-laffon-louise/
The (possibly) older version of the relief, proving that at the very least, it was not an art deco piece originally. But this topic is so interesting so now I have to do more research.
thank you for the clarification!! that relief indeed looks MUCH more roman, this is a fascinating scavenger hunt!
This is indeed a Roman relief currently in the Louvre, probably from Campania! It's been roughly dated to 50 BCE - 50 CE.
Here's the museum catalogue entry (my French is not great so I might have misread stuff - see for yourself!) https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010288191
Thank you so much for the update, good to know there's a Roman copy and where it is!!! I appreciate it!
Startling and scary to see how easy mislabeling can lead to such a rabbit hole of misinformation but I'm glad it found its conclusion today
Love it when people come together to correctly source archaeology đâ¤ď¸đž #Demeter
