Cypriot
Fragment of a Male Figure
5th Century BCE
Physical Qualities
Limestone, Overall: 12 1/2 in. (31.8 cm.)
Credit Line
Purchase Fund
Object Number
1926.1.26
The enigmatic smile affixed to the face of this sculptural fragment--which conveys a sense of liveliness and personhood--evokes earlier artworks produced in the Greek settlements along the Mediterranean coast of western Asia during the 6th and 7th centuries BCE.
When Cyprus was conqured by the Achamenid Empire in 525 BCE, it became a part of an empire that stretched from the Iranian Plateau all the way to northeastern Africa, and Cypriot artists began to make art historial references to older artworks created within the boundaries of the Empire.
Purchased from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cesnola Collection, January 1926.
Cesnola, 'Atlas,' vol. 1, no. 472.
On View: Antioch Court
