Small female figure. Eleusis was the site of the Panhellenic cult of Demeter, from bronze age Greece right through to late Roman times. This figure was found on the site of a small temple, so it may be an akroterion, a roof ornament. It is less likely to be from a pediment as the details of her back are fully carved.
In Archaic vase-painting and sculpture the running pose was very formulaic; one knee on the ground, the other jutting out, arms akimbo, the body in profile below the waist, frontal above. Here, despite some lingering stiffness in the body and drapery, the knees are bent at credible angles, the body suggests forward movement, and the head is naturalistically turned back
Eleusis Museum 32
Purchased 1927
Lippold: Griechische Plastik, 109 (n.5)
Richter: Sculpture & Sculptors of the Greeks (1950), 63, fig.87
Noack, F: Eleusis (1927), 219, figs.87-8
Eleusis, on the site of a small temple
