Perhaps you’re familiar with the ‘Artemesion Zeus/Poseidon’ – a highlight among many at the Athens’ National Archaeological Museum and a masterpiece of Early Classical bronze casting. Nude, powerful, lifesized and bearded he tends to inspire some debate thanks to his missing attributes. Did his trident go astray (in which case he’s Poseidon) or was it
Pulled some 120 years ago from the treacherous maritime straits near the island of Antikythera, this shaggy fellow is one of the finest Hellenistic bronzes to survive. With that engulfing moustache and beard, tousled coiffure, and penetrating gaze (hard to resist a good pair of inlaid eyes), it’s an extraordinarily powerful sculpture. Generally accepted as
In terms of fantastical hybrid beasts, griffins are an intriguing breed. Half lion, half raptor, winged, there are so many body parts for ancient artists to elaborate upon, and any ideas about those blossom-like knobs ever-present on their foreheads? And this is a most remarkable 7th century example from Olympia – the very best century
Naked as a jaybird apart from a choker necklace and baldric over one shoulder, this mirror handle is an utter oddity of the late 6th century B.C. – bucking the convention of demurely draped females that persisted until famous sculptural innovations two centuries later. She holds a pomegranate in one hand, but perhaps more telling
Although much of the face is long gone, there’s something fixating (and strikingly symmetrical) about this most troubled brow…appropriate for the Hellenistic age, when any dynast worth his salt had a serious target on his back and a lot in his mind. He’s a big boy – well larger than life-sized at over 20 centimeters
This little Aphrodite was found as part of salvage excavations in 1960 around the ancient site of Baalbek in Lebanon. It is Roman in date (1st-2nd cent. A.D.) and very much part of the hugely popular Late Classical tradition showing the goddess emerging from the sea, wringing the water from her long tresses. And she
I’ve long admired this statue – a feat of large scale lost-wax casting giving a sense of the scale possible (infinite!), but also the surface subtleties achievable. Now headless, this standing gentleman has the distinct comportment and garments of an orator or magistrate – a statue mode used in the post-Classical period for honorifics set
This is a most extraordinary scene in hammered bronze sheet showing a warrior stepping into his chariot en route to the battlefield. He turns to gaze back at the woman and young child on her shoulders. I can’t resist (a little self-indulgent) ‘reading’ the scene as a condensed illustration Hector’s famous farewell in book 6
Misleading photo alert! Because what I woke up thinking of left precious few archaeological traces, of which these dozens of assorted bronze figurines and remnants of vessels are tangible exceptions….And that is the monumental ash altar (active and growing for centuries) standing near the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. Olympia was a crucially important religious
’Tis the time for feasting (and hunkering) in much of the Northern hemisphere. As it was for Herakles in his later career, when he had more time to carouse. And this stage of the hero’s life – athletic action man gone to seed – was explored artistically with great relish beginning in the later 4th
Staggering in terms of preservation and beauty, undeniably masterful bronze working (and those unsettling eyes!), this head of Augustus is in every survey book on Roman art and portraiture worth its salt. It shows Augustus, the freshly minted princeps of Rome, as a young man, which he was at the time of this portrait’s manufacture
This is a most excellent bronze, and so far thus attracted far less attention that it deserves! The subject is clear – Herakles resting after the labours that ran him ragged over most of the known world and beyond. In my view this is one of the very finest representations of the hero at rest
Bristling with hostile porcine energy, this bronze in Boston is a gem of Hellenistic realism. One can almost hear her barking… Rearing slightly back on hind legs and poised to charge, the sow is a most excellent example of bronze-casting on a small scale (not so small, she is nearly 20 cm long). Her eyes
Movement and three-dimensionality are words commonly bandied about when it comes to the sculptural innovations of the Hellenistic period, and with this little beauty in the Met, it’s not empty art historical jargon! Although she is small (ca. 20 cm), the ‘Baker dancer’ (as she is often referred to, after the bequest that fortuitously landed
With sinuous, scaly neck, ears on high alert, raptor-beak, and that glorious tongue, you can practically imagine this griffin screaming… This bronze (now in the British Museum) is in the shape of an especially fierce griffin, the forepart of a mythical beast with Eastern origins. But while this is an especially fine example (and BIG
Sprightly and powerful in profile, this dancer is a joy! All buoyant curves and sinuous lines, for a relatively small bronze (18.7 cm tall) there is a lot going on here, and a few unanswered questions… If something doesn’t seem quite ‘classical’ about her at first glance, that’s because she was produced in Etruria (modern
The intermittent discoveries of spectacular ancient bronzes have a way of reminding us just how much we’re missing from antiquity and igniting the imagination… This head with assertively bushy beard, tousled hair and intense glare, was excavated by a Bulgarian team in 2004, and most likely represents Seuthes III. The Thracian king ruled the the
I do love it when an artwork speaks in the first person! An inscription in Greek running up and down this statuette’s magnificent thighs, proclaims:“Mantiklos donated me as a tithe to the far shooter, the bearer of the Silver Bow. You, Phoibos (Apollo) give something pleasing in return.” Stylistically, the bronze is on the cusp