An Attic stele depicting five individuals
Greek School
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
c. 400 BC - c. 350 BC
Materials
marble
Measurements
482 x 387 x 115 mm
Place of origin
Greece
Order this imageCollection
Mount Stewart, County Down
NT 1220123
Summary
Sculpture, marble; a funerary stele with five figures; Greek; c. 400-350 B.C. A marble stele (slab) of the fourth century BC, possibly from Athens, commemorating a family group consisting of five individuals, possibly produced in an Athenian workshop, c.400–c.350 B.C.. Fixed upon a modern plinth. The inscription naming the figures is on the moulding (cymation) running above their heads. The figures possibly depict three generations of the same family. The seated male (-sios) and the standing female (Phaino, father and daughter?) are shaking hands (dexiosis), as are the older (Neophron) and younger (Onomantos) standing males (father and son?). Phaino and Neophron touch with their heels, suggesting they were probably husband and wife. Formerly at Londonderry House in London, this is the only Attic inscription in a collection in Northern Ireland.
Full description
A sculpted Attic marble relief featuring five named figures, either a funerary stele commemorating individuals who have died or, possibly, some form of votive tablet. At the far left, seated in a chair, is a mature bearded man, and behind him, carved in low relief, a younger female figure with a raised hand that seems to hold a bird. The seated figure grasps the hand of a standing female figure dressed in a peplos and mantle, in a gesture known as dexiosis. Towards the right is a bearded robed male figure who faces and grasps the hand (dexiosis) of a naked male figure. An entablature (cymation) at the top of the relief with five inscribed names cut above the heads of the figures. The letters of the second name are slightly more crowded than those of the other names. The letters are characteristic of the fourth century BC. There are traces of guide-lines above and below the letters and possible remains of paint in the letters on the left side. The inscription, fragmentary at the left, identifies the seated man as ‘…-sios’, the woman behind him as Kleno, the standing woman as Phaino, the standing bearded man as Neophron and the naked youth as Onomantos. There is a rough-dressed area of stone below the figures; the back of the relief has been unworked, whilst the sides and top are relatively smooth. The bottom corners have been cut away rather unevenly (during antiquity?), to form what appears to be a tenon. The joint and the treatment of the stone below the figures indicate that the stele must originally have sat within some form of base, which may have borne an additional inscription. There are some reddish-brown tinges to the white marble. The relief is a typical example of a Greek funerary monument, with the disposition of the figures typical of Classical Attic funerary monuments during the period c. 480-380 B.C., although it is unusual for this number of figures to be depicted on a single relief. An alternative possibility is that it was not made as a funererary relief but as some form of votive tablet. It is thought that three generations of the same family are to be seen depicted on the stele, the seated male (…sios) and the woman Phaino perhaps being father and daughter, whilst the two male figures at right, Neophron and Onomantos, might have been father and son, the touching of the heels of Phaino and Neophron further indicating that they were husband and wife. Finally, the younger woman Kleno could have been the sister of Onomantos. Her holding a bird is a common motif in these sorts of objects and is associated with youth. It has been suggested that the name of the older man might be read as Aisios which, if correct, would connect the relief with a propertied family prominent in fourth-century Athens and connected with that of the orator and statesman Demosthenes. Aisios was the brother of Aphobos, the guardian of Demosthenes, who was alleged to have mismanaged the orator’s property. Attic funerary monuments were sometimes used to assert claims regarding the inheritance of citizenship and property rights. It has thus been suggested that ‘Perhaps the composition of our monument was intended to convey a specific message in this context, namely that Phaino was the heir of the home and property of [Ai]sios, who, lacking male offspring, may have betrothed his daughter to Neophron with a view to securing the passage of his property to his grandson, Onomantos’ (Liddel and Low 2021, p. 26). The sculpture is the only Attic inscription in a collection in Northern Ireland. It seems likely that it was acquired by a member of the Londonderry family in the early decades of the nineteenth century, the most probable candidates being Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh and 2nd marquess of Londonderry (1769-1821) or his successor as 3rd Marquess, Charles William Stewart Vane (1778-1854). The stele might have been a gift to Castlereagh in gratitude for his role in enabling the restitution of works of art from France to Italy after 1815. It has also been suggested (Whitehead 1995) that it might have been a gift from the Philhellene naval captain William Rowan Hamilton (1783-1834), whose family in Co. Antrim had been much assisted by Castlereagh after Hamilton’s father had been forced to flee Ireland after the failed 1798 uprising in Ireland. Captain Hamilton is known to have sent various minor antiquities collected in Greece to his father-in-law, General Sir George Cockburn of Shanganagh Castle near Dublin. However it came into the Londonderry collections, the relief was discovered ‘about 1915 in the Basement of Londonderry House’ by Edith, Marchioness of Londonderry, according to a note provided by Lady Londonderry herself to the 1939 inventory of Londonderry House. But in fact the stele may be seen in a photograph of around 1880 in an album of views of interiors at Londonderry House and exteriors of Wynyard Park (Londonderry Papers, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland). The stele was then in the ballroom at Londonderry House, on the floor, tucked away behind Canova’s Naiad (now National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.) and a Swedish porphyry tripod. In 1939 it was on display, along with other sculptures, in the Conservatory leading off the Gallery at Londonderry House, and it was first published by H. Clifford Smith in Country Life in 1943. In 1949, after the death of the seventh Marquess of Londonderry, the relief was recorded in a storeroom at the family’s other London house, 24 Hertford Street. It was presumably then taken from London to Mount Stewart some time during the 1950s, since it does not appear in the list of objects brought from Londonderry House to Mount Stewart by Lady Mairi Bury, after its sale in 1962. This entry uses material provided by Professor Peter Liddel, Professor of Greek History and Epigraphy at the University of Manchester. For more discussion, see also the Attic Inscriptions Online website: https://www.atticinscriptions.com/inscription/AIUK13/1. Jeremy Warren June 2025
Provenance
Londonderry House; by descent; lent to the National Trust from Lady Mairi Bury (1921-2009) in1976; accepted by HM Government in lieu of Inheritance Tax and allocated to the National Trust in 2013.
Marks and inscriptions
On entablature (cymation) above figures:: ƩIOƩ KɅENΩ ΦAINΩ NEOΦPΩN ONOMANTOƩ [..SIOS/ KLENO/ PHAINO/ NEOPHRON/ ONOMANTOS]
Makers and roles
Greek School, sculptor
References
Londonderry House 1939: A Catalogue and Valued Inventory of the Furniture and Works of Art at Londonderry House, Park Lane, W... Prepared for the purposes of insurance, with historical notes, by H. Clifford-Smith, 1939, p. 145 Clifford Smith 1943: H. Clifford Smith, An Attic Memorial Tablet’, Country Life, 1 October 1943, p. 604. 24 Hertford Street 1949: Inventory and Valuation of the Contents of Londonderry House, 24, Hertford Street, W. The property of the Most Honourable the Marquess of Londonderry… deceased. Prepared for the purpose of probate by H. Clifford-Smith. 1949., p. 33. Whitehead 1995: David Whitehead, ‘An Unpublished Greek (?) Tombstone in Northern Ireland,’ Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, vol.109 (1995), pp.49-54 Whitehead 1995: David Whitehead, ‘Castlereagh, Captain Hamilton and General Cockburn: An Ancient (?) Tombstone in County Down’, Hermathena, Trinity College Dublin, no.CLVIX (Winter 1995), pp. 5-13. Liddel and Low 2020: Peter Liddel and Polly Low, Attic Inscriptions in UK Collections. Volume 13. Mount Stewart (2020). Online publication: https://www.atticinscriptions.com/papers/aiuk/-13/ Liddel & Low 2021: Peter Liddel & Polly Low 'Ancient Athenian Inscriptions at Petworth House, Lyme and Mount Stewart', National Trust Art, Buildings and Collections Bulletin, Autumn 2021, pp. 22-6