Re-creation of Pheidias’s Huge Gold and Ivory Figure of Athena

Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto.

Processional frieze
As with the metope reliefs, viewers can easily accept disproportional elements of this composition.
Sculptors took into account a low viewpoint of the spectator and carved the top part of the frieze in higher relief. Originally, the entirety of the frieze was painted.

Statue of Athena Parthenos
The original vanished, but descriptions and copies give us a sense of the 40-foot-tall statue.

Athena was decorated in gold and ivory, wearing armor and holding both a shield and a winged Nike in her hands.