Mirror Support: Siren (c. 475 BCE): Art, History and Details

Mirror Support: Siren (c. 475 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This is a bronze of exceptional quality. When complete, it had a cylindrical handle, probably of painted ivory. The reflecting disk was probably of silver, as are the inlays. The intact mirror was obviously an object of great luxury. Sirens (part bird and part woman) were sea-songstresses whose captivating voices drew sailors off course to their deaths. Sirens also accompanied the dead on their voyage to the underworld. The idea was probably imported from Egypt where human-headed ba birds embodied a deceased person's spirit.

Object facts

• Title: Mirror Support: Siren
• Date: c. 475 BCE
• Culture: Greece, Corinth, presumably of Corinthian or Argive origin
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: bronze with silver inlays
• Dimensions: Overall: 11.5 x 9 cm (4 1/2 x 3 9/16 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1967.204

A detail from the museum

This elaborate siren served a practical function, connecting a separately made handle and mirror, now lost.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• “Year in Review.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 54, no. 10 (December 1967): 302–346.
• Cooney, John D. “Siren and Ba, Birds of a Feather.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 55, no. 8 (October 1968): 262–271.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.

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.