Lady of Auxerre
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Lady-of-auxerre.jpg
Lady-of-auxerre.jpg
The small (70 cm high) limestone Lady of Auxerre, (or Kore of Auxerre) is a sculpture at the Louvre Museum in Paris It depicts an archaic Greek goddess of c. 650 - 625 BC. She is a Kore ("maiden") perhaps the maiden Goddess Persephone.
She was found in a storage vault in the Museum of Auxerre, a city east of Paris, in 1909, when a curator from the Louvre caught sight of her. No provenance is known.
She dates from the time when Greece was emerging from its Dark Age. She still has the narrow waist of a Minoan-Mycenaean goddess, and her stiff hair suggests Egyptian influence. The style has been termed "Daedalic." Her secret, knowing and serene hint of a smile is often characterized as the "archaic smile."