Further along, bending into the lower part of the slanted roof, was the figure of an archer (perhaps Paris, son of Priam of Troy). On his arms and legs, we can see traces of a diamond pattern. Brinkmann has spent years recreating the brightly-coloured decoration on copies of the statues which the Ancient Greeks would have seen all around them. This archer is one of his most spectacular: an intricate design of blue, red, yellow and green diamonds interlock, to give the archer ornate leggings and sleeves. His quiver is decorated in a similar colour-palate, with a slightly different design, almost like scales. The bow is painted red and gold, and even the arrows are decorated red. The archer is one of the stand-out pieces in Brinkmann’s Gods in Colour exhibition, which has toured the world for the past 15 years.

In living colour

And Brinkmann is not alone in his attempts to reintroduce colour to ancient sculpture. The Museum of Classical Archaeology in Cambridge has also tried to bring some colour into its plaster reproductions of ancient statues. The original (now white) Peplos Kore – a statue of a young girl, wearing a long dress belted at the waist – stands in the Acropolis Museum in Athens. The dress of the Cambridge copy is painted bright red, with blue borders, and blue, green and white decorations. She has also acquired a pair of feet, lost from the original marble version, and a new left arm. The Acropolis Museum itself makes a bright option available too: they encourage visitors to their website to decorate their own versions of the peplos (dress), allow you to investigate archaic colours and see which colours were available to painters in the ancient world.