"With its somewhat distant-looking quality and distinctive crown of olive leaves, this statue is most likely a memorial portrait. Although the head and body originally came from two separate statues, they are chronologically consistent. The...
"The nose, chin, and fingers on the right hand and the complete left hand are modern. This exceptionally well-preserved statue is striking for its elegant pose and the complexity of the garment and hairstyle. The very young girl represented...
"This mosaic decorated the bottom of a shallow pool […]. The hole at its center belonged to a water jet. […] Its border consists of a band of twisted ribbon between plain bands. The emblema shows one of the popular episodes related to the...
This mosaic's "border consists of two rows of solids in perspective, each with a dot on its face, and between these a rich acanthus scroll. Except in the outer left row the solids meet in the middle. The acanthus branches spring from two...
"This fragment of a wall painting was among the very first ancient artworks discovered in Herculaneum after the volcanic eruption on August 23 in 79 A.D. […] This panel was executed using a technique similar to fresco painting. The design...
"The view from the balcony of the Dalis' second home in Figueres, at Carrer Monturiol 24. This was the painting Dali showed Picasso on his first visit to Paris in April 1926." (Caption); "The building, today numbered Monturiol, 10,...
"Dali's variation on Paolo Uccello's work of the same title, this is probably his most sacrilegious painting." (Caption); The Profanation of the Host […] is one of Dali's most sacrilegious paintings (although later he tried to exonerate...
Sculpture; Portraits; Heads (Anatomy); Men; Emperors; Rulers; People associated with politics & government; Hairstyles
Portrait head. "This portrait has fundamental importance in the study of Augustan iconography. Both it and a very similar portrait in the Forbes collection are considered excellent examples of the Louvre type of Augustan portrait. [...] This...
Photograph first published in the New York evening newspaper PM Daily, 7 September, 1944; "The freelance newspaper photographer Arthur Fellig, better known as 'Weegee', was notorious in New York in the 1930s for being the first to arrive at...
"Where Do We Come From? offers a flowing composition divided into three main figure groupings set in a jungle clearing with the sea in the background. In the center a Polynesian Eve, reminiscent of Botticelli's Giuliano de' Medici in the...
"Where Do We Come From? offers a flowing composition divided into three main figure groupings set in a jungle clearing with the sea in the background. In the center a Polynesian Eve, reminiscent of Botticelli's Giuliano de' Medici in the...
"The vast majority of prehistoric sculptures depict either animals or humans. In the earliest art, humankind consists almost exclusively of women as opposed to men, and painters and sculptors almost invariably showed them nude […]. When...
"Because precision in dating is impossible for the Paleolithic era, art historians usually can be no more specific than assigning a range of several thousand years to each artifact. But probably later in date than the Venus of Willendorf is...
Architecture; Architectural elements; Towers; Walls; City walls; Forts & fortifications
"As the town's wealth grew and powerful neighbors established themselves, the need for protection resulted in the first known permanent stone fortifications. By approximately 7500 BCE, the town, estimated to have had a population of more than...
"Further insight into Sumerian religious beliefs and rituals comes from a cache of sculptures reverently buried beneath the floor of a temple at Eshnunna (modern Tell Asmar) when the structure was remodeled. Carved of soft gypsum and inlaid...
From Gizeh, Egypt, Dynasty IV. "The seated statue of Khafre is one of a series of similar statues carved for the pharaoh's valley temple near the Great Sphinx. The stone is diorite, an exceptionally hard dark stone brought some 400 miles down...
"The Lion Gate at Mycenae and the towering fortification wall circuit of which it formed a part were constructed a few generations before the presumed date of the Trojan War. At that time, wealthy Mycenaeans were laid to rest outside the...
"The Lion Gate at Mycenae and the towering fortification wall circuit of which it formed a part were constructed a few generations before the presumed date of the Trojan War. At that time, wealthy Mycenaeans were laid to rest outside the...
Roman copies of c. 477 BCE Greek bronzes by Kritios and Nesiotes; "The head of Harmodios [figure on right], taken to be similar to that of the Kritios Boy, has a typically Archaic hairstyle (closely packed, patterned curls) juxtaposed with a...
