Horse’s head from the Parthenon

This is a 19th-century plaster cast of a section of the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum in London. The Greek original, in marble, dates from the 5th century BC. Plaster casts of sections of the Elgin Marbles were ordered in London in 1819 by C.J.C. Reuvens, the first professor of archaeology in Leiden and Director of National Museum of Antiquities. They were the first pieces of Greek sculpture to be introduced into the Netherlands.