We’ve moved from ancient Egypt to ancient Greece. With a short walk through The Met, we effectively traveled thousands of years and thousands of miles. Like yesterday’s monolithic Seated Pharaoh, this piece has a similar architectural presence. Except this time, it really is architecture presented as sculpture.

This is a colossal Ionic column from the Temple of Artemis at Sardis, in present-day Turkey, dating to around 300 BC. The base and capital are original, while The Met added a short section of shaft between them. The original column would have stood nearly 60 feet tall.

Similar to yesterday’s photo, where I centered the sculpture within the archway, this column begged to be centered within the doorway behind it. The people in the picture help convey its scale, even in this truncated form. Nobody seems particularly interested in the column, but for me, it was the most interesting object in the room. You know I love architecture more than traditional artwork, so naturally I was drawn to the one object in the room that was actually architecture.

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