Kore of Lyons
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| Material | Pentelic marble |
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| Size | Bust : 64 cm high ; 36 cm wide; 24 cm deep Arm fragment: 65 cm |
| Created | Ancient Greece |
| Period/culture | Archaic Period, c. 540s BC |
| Discovered | Unknown. First mentioned in 1719. Unknown |
| Present location | • Musée des beaux-arts de Lyon, France • Acropolis Museum, Athens , Greece. |
| Identification | Lyon Inv. H1993 & Athens Acr. 269 |
The Kore of Lyons (French: Coré de Lyon) is a Greek statue of Pentelic marble depicting a bust of a young girl of the kore type, conserved at the musée des beaux-arts de Lyon, France. Deriving from the Athenian Acropolis, it is generally dated to the 540s BC. Considered the centrepiece of the museum's antiquities department, the statue was acquired between 1808 and 1810.
The sculpture is fragmentary: the bust is conserved in the musée des beaux-arts de Lyon under the inventory number H 1993, while the lower portion and some fragments of the left arm are conserved in the Acropolis Museum in Athens, under inventory number Acr. 269. After a series of comparisons, the connection between the fragments was definitively established in 1935 by Humfry Payne.
It was one of the numerous Korai of the Acropolis of Athens discovered during the construction of the old Acropolis Museum in the Perserschutt, a layer of destruction from the Persian Wars, containing material from the 570s BC down to the end of the sixth century BC. It represents the first example of the Ionian influence which entered Attic sculpture in the second half of the century and first use of Ionian costume in Attica. The Kore of Lyons is of the generation after the oldest Kore discovered on the Acropolis, Acropolis 593, and represents the beginning of the new phase of Attic sculpture beginning in the third quarter of the sixth century.
The Kore of Lyons has been suggested to have had an architectural function as a caryatid or a votive function.
Characteristic of its type, the Kore of Lyons is a pentelic marble sculpture measuring 64 cm in height, 36 cm wide and 24 cm deep. It depicts the bust of a majestic young woman, who holds an offering against her breast, a bird, identified by some as a dove. The sculpture was painted. Influenced by the art of the Ionian coast, it is dressed in a chiton and himation. She wears a polos atop her head and earrings.
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