Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic ArtHyde, Walter Woodburn
History
Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art
Hyde, Walter Woodburn
Olympics; Sculpture, Greek; Sports -- Greece
Furtwaengler connects with the _Diadoumenos_ the statue of a youthful
boxer, slightly under life-size, which shows a similar motive. It is
known to us in two copies, one in Kassel,[1155] the other in Lansdowne
House, London.[1156] That it is a work of Polykleitos is shown by the
correspondence of its body forms with those of both the _Diadoumenos_
and the _Doryphoros_. A bronze statuette, dating from about 400 B. C.,
in the Akropolis Museum, also repeats the motive without being an exact
copy.[1157]
THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE.
The crown of wild olive[1158] in the hair is another general but not
customary attribute of Olympic victor statues. Fewer sculptured heads
show it than show the _tainia_, and in most of these the leaves have
fallen off. Examples of its presence are afforded by the bronze head
from Beneventum (Fig. 3) in the Louvre,[1159] and on the realistic
bronze head of a boxer found at Olympia (Fig. 61 A and B).[1160] A good
illustration of a boy victor crowning himself is on a fourth-century
B. C. funerary relief, found in 1873 at the Dipylon gate, and now in
the Athens Museum.[1161] The victor is holding or placing a crown of
leaves on his head. In the Museo delle Terme, Rome, is a mediocre
headless copy of an original statue of the end of the fifth century B.
C., the work of an artist of the Polykleitan school, the restoration of
which as a victor engaged in wreathing his head is probable.[1162] A
protuberance on the right shoulder seems to have been left by the end
of the _lemniskos_ or ribbon with which the wreath was adorned.[1163]
The left hand carried an attribute, but probably not a palm-branch
as Helbig assumed, since such a branch, if of metal, would have left
traces on the shoulder. The same restoration has been proposed for
another statue.[1164] A crown on the head, together with the remains
of fingers near it, has been noticed on a bronze statue of Eros, of
Hellenistic workmanship, found off Tunis in the sea,[1165] which shows
Polykleitan influence.
[Illustration: PLATE 19
Statue known as the _Westmacott Athlete_. British Museum, London.]
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