The iconic anthemion motif, that was both so popular in the ancient world and during the years of neoclassical period, was originally inspired by the beautiful, twisting form of the Egyptian and Asiatic honeysuckle plant (also known as the lotus palmette). The earliest depictions of it appeared on Attic white-ground lekythoi, around the 5th century B.C. It was then translated to architectural decoration, where carved marble examples crowned the top of carved funerary monuments called ‘stele’, during the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. It was not unusual for the anthemion that surmounted these stele to be of higher quality than the figures sculpted beneath it. These memorials were originally painted and venerated by families, anointed with oil, decorated with ribbons, and graced with offerings of food.

Selected bibliography

Clairmont, C. W. Classical Attic Tombstones, Kilchberg, Switzerland, 1993; 

Grossman, J. B.Greek Funerary Sculpture: Catalogue of the Collections at the Getty Villa, Los Angeles, 2001; Brinkmann, W., Wünsche, R., Bunte Götter, die Farbigkeit Antike Skulptur, München, 2004

Möbius, H., Die Ornamente der griechischen Grabstelen klassischer und nachklassischer Zeit, Berlin, 1929

Moltesen, M. Greece in the Classical Period, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, 1995, p. 86, no. 28 and p. 89, no. 31

Richter, G. M. A. Catalogue of Greek Sculptures in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oxford, 1954, p. 64, no. 95, pl. LXXVIII(a)

Riegl, A. Problems of Style: Foundations for a History of Ornament, Princeton, 1992

Vedder, U. Untersuchungen zur plastischen Ausstattung attischer Grabanlagen des 4. Jhs. V. Chr.,Frankfurt, 1985