Stele Giustiniani

The stele is flat and upright-rectangular, 1.43 metres high. It tapers slightly from bottom to top, its width changing from 46 cm to 40 cm. It is crowned by a large volute palmette, a form usual for Greek grave stelae since the late 6th century BCE. Although the relief is not deeply worked, the heavy folds of the garment suggest greater spatial depth.

The girl is shown in profile with her head lowered. Her gaze is directed at a box, a pyxis, in her left hand. Between the thumb and forefinger of her raised right hand she holds something, probably grains of incense. The cylindrical lid lying on the ground, which could be placed over the box, suggests a volatile fragrant substance as its content, which the girl lets fall as an offering towards the lid. She wears an ungirdled peplos. The movement of the body shows only slightly beneath the heavy woollen cloth. The peplos is open at the side and shows an overfold falling to the hips. The open peplos is typical in Greek art of unmarried girls (parthenos), as is the hairstyle, in which the hair is tied up with a band wound several times around the head. The garment was held at the shoulder with a pin, and a drill hole at that place shows that a metal pin was fixed there. Metal jewellery was likewise inserted at the earlobe. On her feet she wears sandals, of which only the soles are visible. The lacing was probably painted on in colour.

The treatment of the peplos corresponds to the figures on the metopes of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, which can be dated to around 460 BCE by means other than style. The stance, with the left leg slightly advanced and relaxed, also points to this time, and the design of the volute palmette fits the middle of the 5th century BCE. The stele therefore belongs to the Severe Style of classical Greek art, which placed great value on contrapposto (body movement, free leg and standing leg). The pensive inclination of the head is characteristic of the art of the Greek classical period and is regarded as a pictorial formula for inner movement.