For over 40 years, a team of German archaeologists, initially based in Munich and currently in Frankfurt, has been working to expand our knowledge of ancient marble polychromy. With the help of multispectral photography and imaging techniques, the surviving traces - often ornaments and pattern - are being documented. These images, which are mostly taken of individual small areas of the sculpture, are analyzed producing elaborate drawings. The resulting findings are then transferred to three-dimensional and original-sized casts or 3D prints.

This process gives rise to new questions that need to be clarified through further examination of the original and by searching for comparanda in ancient art history.

It is only through the practice of physical and three-dimensional reconstruction that this research approach achieves its best possible results.

In the meantime, more than sixty reconstructions have been created, which also serve worldwide as a medium to communicate the little-known and irritating fact of painted ancient sculpture to a wider audience.