Glossary
Relief
Sculpture that projects from a flat background rather than standing free, from shallow bas-relief to deeply undercut high relief, common on building façades, monuments, and doors.
Reliefs are the most overlooked works in civic inventories precisely because they're attached to buildings: they get counted as architecture, or not at all, and ownership goes murky when the building changes hands. Depression-era public buildings are especially rich in them: friezes and carved panels worth walking past slowly. A collection survey that looks up at façades usually comes back longer than expected.