Gradiva : Ein Pompejanisches Phantasiest
Wilhelm Jensen1903

On a visit to one of the great antique collections of Rome, Norbert Hanold had discovered a bas-relief which was exceptionally attractive to him, so he was much pleased, after his return to Germany, to be able to get a splendid plaster-cast of it. This had now been hanging for some years on one of the walls of his work-room, all the other walls of which were lined with bookcases. Here it had the advantage of a position with the right ght exposure, on a wall visited, though but briefly, by the evening sun. A bout one third life-size, the bas-relief represented a complete female figure in the act of walking; she was still young, but no longer in childhood and, on the other hand, apparently not a woman, but a Roiman virgin about in her twentieth year. In no ay did she remind one of the numerous extant as-reliefs of a Venus, a Diana, or other Olym:pian goddess, and equally little of a Psyche or ymph.