Roman
Relief Fragments Depicting a Seated Woman and a Griffin
INV-4705
RomanEarly 1st century
Relief Fragments Depicting a Seated Woman and a Griffin
Roman →roman (ancient, style or period)ancientstuccoworksculpture
Date
Early 1st century
Medium
Stucco, pigment, and gold
Dimensions
42.6 × 58.8 × 10.2 cm (16 3/4 × 23 1/8 × 4 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of Mrs. Edith Healy Hill
Inside some Roman houses, baths, and tombs, multiple layers of slow-drying stucco were applied to rough stone walls and divided into panels that were then painted. While the surface was still damp, fresh stucco was applied and modeled into decorative motifs and figures, which were left white to contrast with the painted background. This relief panel and its partner (1922.4429) likely came from the same building. In this panel, a seated woman extends her right arm toward a slender griffin, a mythological winged beast with the body of a cat and the head of a bird.
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