Marble relief fragment with the head of Medea

Unknown

1st–2nd century CE · Marble · Greek and Roman Art

Copy of a Greek marble relief of ca. 420–410 B.C. This head is from a well-known relief that depicts the witch Medea and the two daughters of Pelias, king of Iolkos, in Thessaly. Medea tricked them into killing and boiling their father in hopes of rejuvenating him, and the scene shows them at a cauldron about to commit the terrible act. The original work was one of four reliefs that probably decorated the parapet surrounding the Altar of the Twelve Gods in the Athenian Agora.

Artist

Unknown

Date

1st–2nd century CE

Medium

Marble

Culture

Roman

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Credit line

Rogers Fund, 1923