Casson, Stanley: The technique of early Greek sculpture (Oxford, 1933)

V

MARBLE SCULPTURE IN THE ROUND FROM
ABOUT 540 b.c. TO ABOUT 475 b.c.
Early use of drill. A large and interesting group of the
korai of Attica can be assembled in which the use of the
drill can be seen, not merely for occasional undercuts or
incidental-detail, but for the main construction of the detail
of drapery. Nos. 615, 680, 681, 682, 684, and 694 are the
best examples, though by no means the only korai to exhibit
the use of this tool.
Of these No. 682 is certainly the earliest. It is in the full
style of the island sculpture. It is also one of the largest of
all the korai. A study of its technique is the more important.
A drill has been used thoughout with very great care and
diligence, but only for the undercutting and the folds of
drapery and sparingly even for that. Possibly more than one
drill was used, but the only drill that can be safely recon-
structed from the extant drill-holes measures in diameter
about 2-5 mm. thus1: #
Nos. 615, 680, 684 are all of the class called by Dickins
‘Attic-Ionic’, that term indicating a greater adaptation by
native Attic artists to the new style suggested to them by the
island artists. As such this class belongs to the period 525-
5°o.
No. 681 is the famous Antenor kore, datable almost
certainly to the decade 510-500, since it is improbable that
an artist employed by the Alkmaeonidae would have worked
in Athens under the regime of their enemies the Peisistrati-
dae. Nor is it likely that Antenor would have carved a group
of Tyrannicides if he had been a protege of the tyrants. The
1 It must be remembered that the drill-hole is inevitably larger than the
drill in diameter, and further allowance must be made for the axial swing of
the drill, used by hand, which tends to make the drill-hole conical in shape.
The diameter of the end of the hole is alone a criterion by which to estimate
the diameter of the drill.