Frieze Fragment with Semi-Reclining Nude
Description
Object Label: The walls of both pagan and Christian tombs were decorated with friezes, usually composed of twined stems forming loops, which typically enclosed animals. The largest piece here, an unusually fine example, shows predators, possibly a boar and a hyena, chasing an antelope and perhaps a dog. These chases continued to the right, where traces of what may be a spotted leopard remain. Two plant loops on a smaller relief enclose fruits and a fanciful animal. Rather different are two parts of a frieze that featured naked women lounging in front of large plants. The figures have been repainted, but the bird held by one of them must depict the swan form in which the god Jupiter seduced Leda. Thus this frieze must have decorated a pagan monument. Caption: Coptic. Frieze Fragment with Semi-Reclining Nude, 4th–5th century C.E., with 20th century alterations. Limestone, pigment, 11 x 12 5/8 x 4 in. (28 x 32 x 10.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 55.2.2. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano
Machine-generated from the object's image on Jul 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
A limestone relief frieze fragment painted with red pigment shows a semi-reclining nude human figure with a partially preserved head and torso against a blank/ornamental background field.
The image depicts a rectangular carved limestone fragment in relief. On the right, the head of a nude figure faces forward; the facial features are stylized, with painted red-brown flesh tones and darker lines for facial details. The figure reclines on the left side of the composition, with one arm extending forward and the other bent near the torso; the legs are partially preserved at the lower edge. The background includes carved decorative elements in relief (including a branching or fan-like motif on the left/center) and a stepped or base-like band along the bottom. Pigment remains on the skin and along some carved contours, consistent with an originally colored relief. No legible hieroglyphs, cartouches, or Greek/Coptic/Arabic inscriptions are visible in the provided image. No royal name cartouches can be identified, and no specific deity attributes can be confirmed from the fragment alone.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 55.2.2 tier-2
- BKM-Object 69290 tier-2
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art.
- AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
- Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
- Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.