Upon what statue did the raven perch in Poe's 'The Raven'?

In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” the raven perches upon a bust of Pallas. Pallas is an epithet associated with Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, so the statue is often understood as a bust of Pallas Athena.

The detail appears when the grieving narrator opens his chamber door and the bird enters. After surveying the room, the raven flies to the sculpted figure above the chamber door and settles there. Its elevated position gives the bird an ominous, authoritative presence as the narrator questions it.

A common mix-up is to answer “Athena,” which identifies the deity behind Pallas but not the wording Poe uses in the poem. The poem says “Pallas” because Poe chose the classical epithet, and the exact phrase “bust of Pallas” is the canonical quiz answer. The statue also creates an intellectual contrast: the goddess represents wisdom, while the raven’s repeated “Nevermore” drives the narrator toward emotional despair.