In the early 5th century BC, Greek lawmakers had drawn up rules for mourning expenses. A ban on Athens and Attica therefore severely restricted the excessive expense of funeral ceremonies and the decoration or marking of burial sites. However, just over a century later, wealthy Athenians and wealthy foreigners returned to luxuriously decorating their tombs and gravesites and began once again to place signs on the grave sites that could be seen from afar. Grave reliefs like this one stood along the roads leading out of the city.
The last and most severe funerary law in Athenian history is that of Demetrios of Phaleron (c. 350-280 B.C.), enacted in 317/07 B.C. It again severely restricted the large and lavish expenditure on funerary ceremonies and the tombs, and finally ended the production of this type of funerary monument.
The history of this funerary relief goes back to the recent past. During the German occupation of France, the object was confiscated from Jewish property and offered on the Paris art market from 1943. Via the Munich art dealer Walter Bornheim, it was sold to the Reichsleiter of the NSDAP and head of the German Labour Front (DAF), Robert Ley, who finally gave it to Hermann Göring for his 50th birthday. (AVS)
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