Head of a Kore (c. 480–460 BCE): Art, History and Details

Head of a Kore (c. 480–460 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This small head probably once belonged to a full-body statuette of a young woman, a miniature of the Archaic Greek kore statue type. She has heavily lidded eyes and wears a double-banded fillet around her hair. The face and front of the hair are damaged and weathered. A statuette such as this one was likely made as a votive gift to a goddess.

Object facts

• Title: Head of a Kore
• Date: c. 480–460 BCE
• Culture: Greece, Amorgos
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: marble
• Dimensions: Overall: 11.5 cm (4 1/2 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1924.538

A detail from the museum

Kore,which means maiden, is also another name for the Greek goddess Persephone.

Collection credit

Gift of J. H. Wade

Further reading listed by the museum

• "Three Greek and Roman Heads." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 11, no. 9 (November 1924): 181-182.
• Langlotz, Ernst. Fruehgriechische Bildhauerschulen. Nuernberg: E. Frommann & Sohn, 1927.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.