Sleeping female, Marble sculpture at First Cemetery of Athens, Greece.
Sleeping Female is a life-sized marble sculpture at the First Cemetery of Athens depicting a young woman lying in repose. She holds a cross to her chest while resting on crumpled sheets, with careful attention paid to the textures of both her skin and clothing.
Created in 1878 by Greek sculptor Yannoulis Chalepas, this work marks the grave of Sophia Afentaki, who died of tuberculosis at seventeen. The sculpture belongs to a period of artistic productivity before the artist withdrew from public work for many decades.
The sculpture expresses a Greek understanding of death as peaceful rest, drawing on ancient ideas about sleep and mortality. This meaning remains visible in the woman's calm pose, which shows how ordinary people of that time thought about death.
The sculpture is accessible to visitors within the First Cemetery of Athens, and a plaster cast is also preserved at the National Glyptothek for those unable to visit in person. Spending time observing the fine details rewards the visitor with insights into the artist's technical mastery.
The work showcases finely carved details such as realistically chiseled folds in the garments and soft modeling of flesh and face. This technical sophistication emerged during a brief fertile period in the sculptor's life, before he withdrew from public activity for decades.
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