Maiden with flowers

Korai bearing flowers were a beloved type in Archaic Greek sculpture — the votive maidens of the Athenian Acropolis dedicated by aristocratic families in the sixth century BCE, with their straight gowns and faintly smiling faces, each holding an offering for the goddess. Roses, pomegranates, lotus buds, small wreaths: the flower in the maiden's hand carried whichever local cult symbolism the family wished to invoke. The type survived into Hellenistic and Roman art as a generic figure of grace and gentle attentiveness.