Stele for Medeia 

A finely carved fragment of an Attic marble grave stele carved in high relief, depicting a female figure in profile within an architectural frame. The figure of the young woman faces towards her right, with her right hand raised towards her shoulder. The fingers of the raised hand are curved, as if holding an object – Clairmont suggests that she may originally have been holding a painted object that has since worn away. Her long, wavey hair is parted in the centre and held back in a long braid over her neck and back. She wears a chiton buttoned on the upper arm under a peplos of heavier material, belted around her waist, and a back mantle fastened with large circular brooches at the shoulders. Her clothes identify her as a parthenos, or unmarried young woman. The figure is framed by antae supporting a horizontal architrave with staggered antefixes surmounting the tiled roof. The architrave is carved with a single line of inscription recording the name of the woman to whom the stele is dedicated: Medeia. 
 
Within ancient Greek society, parthenoi occupied a liminal space between childhood and adulthood. Being unmarried, they were not seen as having fully transitioned into their adult roles as wives and mothers. Their importance is attested by this fine funerary monument, and Roccos theorises that the death of a parthenos represented both a personal loss and a societal one – preventing any possibility of their future children furthering the Athenian cause. Surviving stelae representing parthenoi are comparatively rare, comprising only 4% of Clairmont’s extensive corpus of Attic funerary reliefs.

Joseph Brummer Collection Part III, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 8-9 June 1949, Lot 419. 
The Ernest Brummer Collection, vol. II, Spink & Son and Galerie Koller, Zurich, 16-19 October 1979, Lot 601.  
Christoph W. Clairmont, Classical Attic Tombstones, vol. 1 (Kilchberg, 1993), p. 308, no. 1.310. 
Johannes Bergemann, Demos und Thanatos (Munich, 1997), pp. 173, 236, no. 574. 
Linda Jones Roccos, ‘Back-Mantle and Peplos. The Special Costume of Greek Maidens in 4th-Century Funerary and Votive Reliefs’, Hesperia, 69:2 (April-June 2000), pp. 237 (note 23), 255, no. 40. 
Hélène Bectarte, ‘Le costume de l’épouse dans l’art funéraire attique de l’époque classique’, in Chemin faisant. Mythes, cultes et société en Grèce ancienne. Mélanges en l’honneur de Pierre Brulé, ed. Lydie Bodiou et al., (Rennes, 2009), pp. 237, 245, fig. 1. 
Katia Margariti, The Death of the Maiden in Classical Athens (Oxford, 2017), p. 390, no. E39, pl. 36. 
Katia Margariti, ‘Lament and Death instead of Marriage. The Iconography of Deceased Maidens on Attic Grave Reliefs of the Classical Period’, Hesperia, 87:1 (January-March 2018), p. 134, no. 25. 
Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art, Sotheby’s, London, 4 December 2018, Lot 14. 
The Devoted Classicist: The Private Collection of a New York Antiquarian, Christie’s, New York, 6 October 2022, Lot 17.  

Previously with Theodoros A. Zoumpoulakis (active c. 1912-1960s), 13 Edward Law, Athens, by at least 1923. 
Private Collection of Joseph Brummer (1883-1947), New York, inv. no. P801, acquired from the above c. 20 November 1923, and transferred to the Brummer Gallery collection 31 December 1928, kept in house vault from May 1934, accompanied by inventory card and photographs. 
Thence by descent to his brother, Ernest Brummer (1891-1964), Paris and New York, photographed by Schiff on 22 April 1948, accompanied by handwritten inventory list from 1964. 
Thence by descent his wife, Ella Laszlo Baché Brummer (1900-1999), New York, from 1964 to 1973, then Durham, North Carolina, until 1979. 
Sold at: The Ernest Brummer Collection, vol. II, Spink & Son and Galerie Koller, Zurich, 16-19 October 1979, Lot 601.  
With Robin Symes Ltd., London, acquired from the above sale. 
Private Collection, Belgium, acquired from the above on 31 October 1979. 
Thence by descent. 
Sold at: Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art, Sotheby’s, London, 4 December 2018, Lot 14. 
Private Collection of Bassam Alghanim (b. 1952), New York, acquired from the above and kept in the James F.D. Lanier House, New York City, until 2022. 
ALR: S00256889, with IADAA Certificate, this item has been checked against the Interpol database. 

Theodoros A. Zoumpoulakis (active c. 1912-1934) was an Athenian art dealer, who opened his first shop on Edward Law Street in Athens in 1912. Specialising in rare artworks and antiquities, Zoumpoulakis gradually built his name as an art dealer and a collector, and opened three other shops on Pandrossos Street, Homer Street, and the Rue Lazare in Paris. Another member of his family, Byron Th. Zoumboulakis continued to sell pieces from Theodoros’ collection into the 1960s, and in 1986 and 2005, Peggy Zoumpoulakis donated many Greek vases and fragments from his collection to the Benaki Museum, Athens. His descendants have continued the family business, and now operate a fine and contemporary art dealership in Athens. Many pieces that passed through Zoumpoulakis’s hands are now in major museums around the world, including the Walters Art Museum, MFA Boston, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the British Museum. A grave stele of a woman much like this example, which was with Zoumpoulakis in 1933, is now in the Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri (4:1933).5F6

The Brummers acquired more than 550 pieces from Zoumpoulakis between 1924 and 1946. Significantly, however, they did not acquire anything from him during the triple occupation of Greece and accompanying political upheaval between 1940 and 1945. Zoumpoulakis is often also referred to as Mr. Zoumpoulakis. Based on an error in the Brummer’s inventory card for this dealer, presumably based on the shop’s location on Edward Law Street, Zoumpoulakis is referred to as Edward Zoumpoulakis in their records and also in some of the museums they traded the pieces acquired from Zoumpoulakis to. There is no record of an ‘Edward Zoumpoulakis’ aside from those affected by the Brummer’s misnomer. This mistake can be seen in the 2018 Sotheby’s record for this stele, but was rectified in Christie’s 2022 publication. The Brummer inventory card records that Joseph Brummer visited Zoumpoulakis in Greece in 1923, around the time he acquired this stele.

Joseph Brummer (1883-1947) was born in Sombor, Hungary, and cultivated an interest in the arts from an early age. He studied art and worked as a sculptor, but it is as a connoisseur and art dealer that he is best remembered.

He moved to Paris and formed a partnership with the Maison Delhomme to sell antiquities at 67 Boulevard Raspail. In November 1910, he set up his own gallery, Maison Joseph Brummer, at the same address and moved to a new location a couple of months later. He called his new gallery Brummer: Objets d’art anciens. His younger brothers Imre (1889–1928) and Ernest (1891–1964), soon joined him and the gallery was renamed Brummer Frères: Curiosités. The brothers worked in Paris for two years, before Joseph and Imre emigrated to New York in 1914, where they opened a gallery on 57th Street

Joseph’s Paris gallery closed after the First World War and in 1921 he moved to New York full-time, becoming one of the pre-eminent dealers of his time, specialising in medieval and Renaissance European art, and Classical, Ancient Egyptian, African, and pre-Columbian objects. He also hosted exhibitions of modern painters. Joseph built up an extraordinary private collection during this time, a major portion of which was bought by the Metropolitan Museum of Art on his death in 1947. Much of his remaining collection was sold in 1949 at Parke-Bernet Galleries.

The inventory card records that Brummer purchased this stele in November 1923, and is stamped to indicate that it was included in the third auction of Joseph’s collection at Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 8-9 June 1949, Lot 419. However, the stele must not have sold at this time.

Born in former Yugoslavia, Ernest Brummer (1891–1964) moved to Paris to study art history at the Sorbonne and the École du Louvre, where he studied with Salomon Reinach, who had recently been appointed director of the Musée des Antiquités Nationales. Later, with his brothers, Joseph (1883–1947) and Imre (1895–1928), he opened an antiquities shop.

Ernest remained in Paris after Joseph and Imre left for the United States in 1914 at the beginning of the First World War. The gallery would remain at 3, boulevard Raspail until the early 1920s, when Ernest would relocate it to 36, rue de Miromesnil, after Ernest and Joseph had a falling out. After the war, Joseph opened a second shop at 203 bis, boulevard Saint Germain. The brothers were reconciled by 1924 and participated in a transatlantic partnership until Joseph's death in 1947. After joining the business in Paris, Ernest travelled extensively throughout Europe to acquire works of art for the gallery. The Brummers initially dealt in African tribal arts before branching out into ancient, medieval, contemporary French, and pre-Columbian art.

Ella Baché Brummer (1900-1999, née Laszlo) was a Jewish woman born in 1900 and raised in Hungary. She wanted to study medicine like her brother, Dr. Daniel Laszlo, but she was not allowed to attend medical school. Because of this, she studied at the University of Budapest and became the first woman to graduate as a pharmacist there at the age of 26. She pursued a career in pharmacy and went on to produce her own scientific skin-care products. After a brief and unhappy arranged marriage to a Hungarian banker by the name of Bacher, she moved to Paris, where she worked as a consultant for a top skincare company. Following this, she founded her own company, Ella Baché and opened her own shop on rue de la Paix in 1936. A salon bearing her name still operates at this location today.

Around 1941, Ella was forced to flee the Nazi invasion of Paris. After her brother obtained her a visa, Ella left France for the United States, leaving Europe on the last ship out of Lisbon in 1942. Ella met Ernest Brummer the day after she arrived in America, at a dinner with her brother and his patient (Ernest). Ella and Ernest lived together for eight years in Manhattan before marrying. Ella established a new laboratory for her cosmetics company on 55th Street, and the couple split their time between New York and Europe, to allow Ernest to continue running the gallery, and Ella her shop at rue de la Paix. Apparently, their decision to marry was sparked by their time travelling – often on their long transatlantic sea voyages, Ernest would be invited to sit at the Captain’s table to dine, but Ella was not allowed to join him due to their marital status.

After Ernest’s death, Ella moved with his collection to a new home in Durham, North Carolina. After five years Ella decided to return to New York to resume running her business, but she left the collection in the Durham house. Prior to Ernest’s death, Ella took no part in the running of the gallery, but afterwards she took over the management of his collection, representing it to Brummer’s clients, museums, and other contacts. Brummer allowed staff from the Metropolitan Museum, New York, with whom all the Brummer brothers worked closely, to visit the collection for research. She also helped in the development of the ‘Medieval Art in Private Collection’ exhibition which ran between October 1968 and January 1969, loaning thirteen small objects under the name Mrs. Ernest Brummer. She also contributed to ‘The Secular Spirit: Life and Art at the End of the Middle Ages’ exhibition in 1975, and sponsored another in 1981. She continued to donate objects to the Met, including 48 pieces of French medieval stained glass in 1977. She also donated and sold objects to the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Brooklyn Museum, as well as numerous academic institutions, and private collectors.