Parthenon. South metope 21

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Provision of image

Inventory number

Ακρ. 713

Artist

Pheidias' workshop

Category

Architectural sculpture

Period

Classical Period

Date

445-440 BC

Dimensions

Figure on the left: 0.37 x 0.23 m and 0.51 x 0.22 m
Upper part of metope: 0.6 x 0.42 x 0.15 m
Figure on the right: 0.28 x 0.295 m and 0.38 x 0.235 m

Material

Marble from Penteli

Location

Parthenon Gallery

Description
Bibliography

Fragments from metope 21 which is very poorly preserved and thus its subject is only known by a drawing attributed to Jacques Carrey. Two women flank the xoanon of a goddess. As in the cases of metopes 19 (Ακρ. 8344) and 20 (Ακρ. 1118), specialists’ opinions regarding the interpretation of the metope differ. Those who see a connection between the central metopes and Athenian mythology believe that here is depicted the removal of the old Panathenaic peplos from Athena Polias's xoanon and its replacement by the new one represented as a folded cloth on the previous metope 20 (Ακρ. 1118). Accordingly, on the viewer’s right, the bare-breasted woman is thought to be taking off the xoanon’s wreath or diadem. Alternately, those who associate the subject with the wedding of Peirithoos in Thessaly consider both women to be Lapiths, supplicants to the xoanon, pleading for their protection as the battle between their compatriots and the Centaurs rages on the adjacent metopes. In the light of this approach, the bear-breasted woman is believed to have just escaped some Centaur’s grasp.

The main theme of the thirty two metopes on the south side of the Parthenon is the Centauromachy, the mythical battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs. The Centaurs, half-human creatures with a horse's body from the waist down, while attending the wedding feast of king Peirithoos, close friend of Theseus, became drunk and attempted to carry off the Lapith women.

Each metope on the south side depicts either a fight between a Centaur and a Lapith or the seizing of a Lapith woman by a Centaur. However, the nine central metopes (nrs. 13-20), portray different subjects which still cannot be easily interpreted. Some scholars connect them with Athens' mythical past, but it seems more probable that they are scenes of the marriage from inside the palace of Peirithoos in Thessaly.

The south metopes were not damaged by Christians as severely as those on the other sides of the temple. The bombardment of the monument by Francesco Morosini, in 1687 broke fourteen of them into fragments (nrs. 11, 13-25). In the beginning of the 19th cent. fifteen out of the eighteen best preserved were forcibly detached by Thomas Bruce, lord of Elgin, when Greece was under Ottoman occupation, and ended up in the British Museum in London (nrs. 2-9 and 26-32). Metope 10, which had originally fallen on the ground, after its many adventures, ended up in the Louvre Museum in Paris. Some smaller metope fragments have been dispersed in other museums abroad. The Acropolis Museum houses metopes 1 and 12 as well as fragments of nine further metopes, which were found scattered on the Acropolis and the surrounding area (nrs. 11, 13, 16, 17, 19-22 and 24). Their reconstruction was achieved with the help of the drawings attributed to the painter Jacques Carrey, who visited Athens in 1674, just thirteen years before its bombardment by Morosini.

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