Image Details

Richard Nowitz
Besides carrying off marbles from the Parthenon, Lord Elgin removed one caryatid, a column in the form of a woman, from the Erectheum (shown here). This Ionic temple to one of Athens’s legendary Mycenaean founders, Erechtheus, sits north of the Parthenon on the Acropolis. It is often attributed to the sculptor Alcamenes, a protégé of Phidias, who supervised the carving of the Parthenon marbles. The caryatid taken by Lord Elgin has been replaced with a plaster replica.