The inscription on the hem of this cylindrical female figure’s clothing says it was made for the goddess Hera by somebody called Cheramyes. The findspot corroborates the dedication. Other sculptures have been more recently discovered with similar inscriptions, so they all may have stood together as a group.
The shape of the figure is interesting. Although carved in stone, its treetrunk-like appearance may hint at the origins of Greek sculpture, in wood; it certainly contrasts with the flat slab-like appearance of, for example, the Nikandre kore
Paris Louvre 686
Purchased in 1884 from the Louvre’s cast atelier
Lippold: Griechische Plastik, 56, pl. 14.1
Buschor, E: Altsamische Standbilder II (1934), pls. 86-89
Karo: Personality in Greek Archaic Art, 201-2
Grose: 2, no.20
Walston: Catalogue of Casts in the Museum of Classical Archaeology (1889), 9, no.11
Reporter: 19 June 1885, 891, no.7
Stewart: Greek Sculpture, 116, pls. 93-6
Karakasi: Archaic Korai (2003), 13
Cheramyes dedicated me, a statue for Hera
Found in 1875 in the Sanctuary of Hera on the Greek island of Samos
