GREECE PELOPONNESE ELEIA OLYMPIA MUSEUM

Above left: Terracotta euthemia antefix with acanthus leaves from the roof of Phidias' workshop, ca. 430 BC. - Above right: Fragment of a vase from the workshop of Phidias, depicting Perseus with Medusa's head. - Below: The well-preserved, more than life-size statue of Hermes carrying the infant Dionysos is another highlight of the Archaeological Museum in Olympia. It was made of Parian marble in ca. 330 BC by the famous sculptor Praxiteles. The general posture of the child, especially the way it turns and stretches the arms, foreshadows already in some way presentations of the Madonna with the Holy Child of much later centuries.

Above right: Reconstruction drawing of Phidias' chryselephantine sculpture of Zeus in his temple. - Below left: Head of a statuette of Aphrodite, 4th century BC. One of my favourites. - Below right: Statue of a bull with the votive inscription by Regilla, Herodes Atticus' wife: "Regilla priestess of Demeter offers the water and appendices to Zeus"; 2nd century AD.