Athena and Her Owl Beside the Shield — Print & Oil Painting

The owl does the introducing. It stands behind her right shoulder with its wings half open and its ear tufts raised, pale-breasted, staring directly out of the picture, and it is placed high enough that the eye meets it before it meets the goddess.

Athenians put an owl on their silver coinage for centuries because the bird belonged to Athena, so a portrait that leads with it is making an accurate claim. The rest of the attributes follow in order: a long spear held upright in the left hand, a gold helmet with a red crest pushed back off the forehead so the face stays clear, and a large round shield at her right side with the Gorgon's head embossed at its centre, the head Perseus took and Athena carried afterward.

She is dressed in white and red. A chiton pinned at one shoulder with a gold disc, a deep crimson cloak falling behind, a wide gold belt with matching bands at the wrists and above the sandals. She stands with her weight on the back leg, looking down and to the left rather than at us.

The setting gives away that this is a painting about a city as much as about a person. Behind her a temple front with columns sits among cypress and lawn, white birds cross the middle distance, and a mountain climbs into cloud, while a fluted column at the right edge closes the composition back indoors.

Kept in our Ancient Greece collection, alongside the same goddess in mid-leap through smoke and the Minotaur fight for the mortal side of the same mythology.