Eirene and Ploutos type (Sculpture)
Eirene, shown as a mother, holding the baby Ploutos
- ID:
- aa_2484
- Type:
- Sculpture
- Date:
- -375 — -371
- Period:
- Late Classical
- Context:
- From Athens, Agora
- Region:
- Attica
- Sculptor:
- Literary attestation to Kephisodotos
- Condition:
- Lost
- Scale:
- Over life-size
- Style:
- Late Classical
- Material:
- Marble
- Type:
- Free-standing statue
- Category:
- Original/copies
Date Description
This statue was probably commissioned to celebrate either a peace made with Sparta in 374 B.C., after Timotheos' victory over the Spartans (also the founding of Eirene's cult in Athens) or the peace of Kallias in 371 B.C. Since an image of the statue is pictured on Panathenaic amphorae of 360/59 B.C. (dated by dipinti naming the archon of that year) it must have been completed by then.
Subject Description
As restored from copies, this statue showed Eirene, the personification of peace, standing nearly frontal, with her weight on her left leg, and her right leg relaxed. She wore a peplos, a himation draped over both shoulders (seemingly attached where peplos was fastened), long hair, some rolled around a taenia, with an ampyx (hairband) revealing itself at the front, earrings (made from metal?), and thick-soled sandals. She turned her head in a 3/4-view, tilted down, to look at the baby Ploutos, personification of wealth, cradled in her left arm, along with a keras (horn of plenty). Ploutos, seated 3/4-view to the left, with legs crossed, wearing a himation draped over his knees, lower legs, and thighs tilted his head in 3/4-back-view to the left, looking up at Eirene, reaching his right arm up to her, and his left arm down at his side.