The back of the Dying Niobid

A Première on the Internet

Every year, during my Survey I Art history class I devote a week to Greek Art. One of the slide is of course The Dying Niobid a beautiful Greek classical sculpture done around 440 B.C.E. This is the usual slide that all the art history professors show to their students.

The story is the following. A child of Niobe is mortally slain by Apollo and Artemis, because Niobe, the mother, boasted of her many more children compared to Leto’s, Apollo’s mother. She has been shot in the back while running. All the details of this tragedy is on the Net. Notice the grief, or the “pathos”, a first in art history, also well documented on the Internet.

But what we do not see in books, nor on the Net, is the back of the sculpture and here it is! Just click on this link to view this world première! (we are smiling here)

Remember, this is a world first: “The back of the Dying Niobid”. Enjoy!

Walk the Arts at the Palazzo Massimo in Rome!