Eternal Little Goddess

Statuette of Aphrodite or a Muse leaning on a pillar

Greek Hellenistic Period 300–250 B.C.

Greece

DIMENSIONS: Height: 39.4 cm (15 ½ in.)

Painted Terracotta

> mfa.org

I love seeing painted figures with pigments that are thousand of years old.

~ Leaning Muse, Probably Polyhymnia. Place of origin: Greece Date: 3rd-2nd century B.C. Period: Hellenistic Medium: marble

~ Statue of a Muse. Culture: Roman Place: Roman Empire Date: ca. A.D. 200 Medium: Marble

Antonio Canova, 1757-1822

Terpsichore Lyran (Muse of Lyric Poetry), 1816, marble, 177,50x78,10x61 cm

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Exquisite

Ἑνάτη Ἱσταμένου, IX day From today’s sunset: ninth day of Boedromion. The ninth day is always sacred to the Muses, to Rhea and to Helios. “The eighth and the ninth of the month that begins: these are the best days to accomplish the man’s works: (Hesiod) praise the eighth and ninth plausibly as they carry perfection (syntelestikai) and therefore he has dedicated them to the human activities…one (the eight), by having a perfect dimension, the other (the nine), by deriving from a perfect number (the three), bring to accomplishment the works undertaken in them.” Schol. Erga, 772-773 “The ninth of the first part of the month, for all men, is completely devoid of evils: it is good both for planting and for generating, both for a man and for a woman, and it is never a day completely bad.” “From discoursing about king Apollo, Plato proceeds to the Muses, and the name of music; for Apollo is celebrated as Musagetes, or the leader of the Muses. And He indeed is a monad with respect to the harmony in the world; but the choir of the Muses is the monad of all the number of the ennead (i.e. nine): From both likewise the whole world is bound in indissoluble bonds, and is one and all-perfect, through the communications of these divinities; possessing the former through the Apolloniacal monad, but its all-perfect subsistence through the number of the Muses. For the number nine which is generated from the first perfect number (that is 3) is, through similitude and sameness, accommodated to the multiform causes of the mundane order and harmony; all these causes at the same time being collected into one summit for the purpose of producing one consummate perfection.” (Proclus on the Cratylus of Plato Concerning the Muses) (Statuette of a Muse standing holding the right hand up, following the Muse for Drama who holds a mask. She has the left arm resting on the hip, the right arm extending and the right leg bent and crossing her right over it. She is wearing a chiton high-girt and deeply cut under the right arm and dropped below the left shoulder, with a binding around the neck. From Myrina, late 2nd century BCE. Now in the Boston Museum…)