Fragment of a Relief of a Horse's Head

The fragment depicts the right cheek of a horse, including the jaw angle, the eye, and part of the nose. Dark streaks extending from the bottom of the eye may be due to weathering of the stone. The hide bears marks of the rasp. The eye is prominent with an prominent orbital bone. The iris and pupil are incised circles and would have originally been painted. A harness, probably of bronze, would have been added in shallow grooves roughly carved in the finished surface of the marble. That the Getty fragment belongs to a relief sculpture is suggested by its shallow carving; it is not possible to reconstruct the depth necessary for a freestanding statue. The size of the fragment would best suit that of a votive relief. Sculpted images of horses and horsemen were popular on the Athenian Acropolis and may represent victors in equestrian events.

The fine-grained gray marble from which the relief is carved likely comes from quarries on Mount Hymettos in Athens. The use of Hymettian marble in Archaic sculpture is rare, but not unknown. Attic marble from Mount Hymettos is first used for sculpture in the second quarter of the sixth century B.C.