Featured on PDR in the collection The Shadow of Desire: Painting the Origins of Art (ca. 1625–1850)

When did artists first start modeling humans out of clay, sketching shadows roughly cast on stone? In his Natural History, Pliny the Elder tells the story of Butades, a potter from Sicyon, whose daughter falls in love with a nameless young man on the eve of his sojourn abroad. The depth of her passion has caught her off guard; the pending threat of separation even more so. Kora (sometimes also called Butades, or Dibutades, or The Corinthian Maid) seeks to preserve a trace of her beau’s beautiful features, which inspire such feeling. She traces the silhouette of his shadow, cast by the warm light of an oil lamp. He departs as promised, leaving Kora as empty as that outline on the wall. Her father intervenes.…