caryatid

The single square column features crouching figures in the capital who seem to be holding up the arch, a playful evocation of the classical figure of the caryatid or herm.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 21, 2026

Sometimes a caryatid has been compared to the unseen slave who carried society’s burdens.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 15, 2023

Although their name was an architectural inside joke — a caryatid is a type of Greek column that is also a statue of the female likeness — their guileful display took on some serious issues.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 31, 2018

You may think that David Cameron's well-heeled colleagues would give him a marble caryatid bought from the Frieze Masters art fair for his birthday.

From The Guardian ● Oct. 12, 2012

“A caryatid wouldn’t be strong enough for Dad.”

From "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls

For those He loves that underprop With daily virtues Heaven’s top, And bear the falling sky with ease, Unfrowning caryatides.

From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) by Robert Louis Stevenson

He paused in the sea of green moonlight before the gold threshold of the Palais du Danse, whose caryatides were faun-eyed Mænads and Ægipans.

From Just Around the Corner Romance en casserole by Fannie Hurst

Lord Elgin carried off to London, about 1801-1803, one of the columns of the east portico and one of the caryatides; these were replaced later by terra-cotta casts.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 7 "Equation" to "Ethics" by Various

On one side was a bookcase supported by caryatides.

From The Paliser case by Edgar Saltus

The fair form, beneath which all his ideals of beauty stood only as heraldic bearers and caryatides, was even colder than at the reception, and persisted in being only the echo of the parental courtesy.

From Hesperus or Forty-Five Dog-Post-Days Vol. I. A Biography by Jean Paul

A critic of the day hailed the bravura Hunt caryatids as “full of sentiment, showing a refined imagination, a scholar’s grasp of the requirements and an artist’s appreciation of fitness.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 8, 2026

In it, she and Cardi B dress in Grecian goddess-inspired dresses, dance in front of classically inspired statuary, wear headdresses that evoke caryatids and transform into Grecian vases.

From Salon ● Sep. 4, 2021

He sat in a ostentatious Greek-style hall bedecked with four caryatids, the draped female figures used in columns — a style first seen in Delphi 2 ½ millennia ago.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 12, 2019

A dozen caryatids - sculpted female figures which had helped support one of the building's domed roofs - were carefully lowered.

From BBC ● Jan. 27, 2016

These marble women are called caryatids, which orginally referred to the priestesses of Artemis at Caryae.

From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood