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The Then & Theory team

Statues in colour

Half of this head is weathered stone, and half is rebuilt in facets of colour. Greek and Roman marble statues were often painted, although most look white today. The paint has faded over two thousand years, but traces survive, and conservators find them with microscopes, X-ray fluorescence and special photography. One pigment, Egyptian blue, gives off a faint infrared glow that a modified camera can record, which shows where it was painted even when the eye sees nothing. Reconstructions built from this evidence show gods and warriors in brightly patterned clothes.

Note. Colour reconstructions are informed proposals. How much of each statue was painted, and how, is still argued.

Sources

1. Harvard Art Museums, “Gods in Color: Painted Sculpture of Classical Antiquity”
2. Applied Sciences (2023), the Met’s study of a painted Attic sphinx