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
by that of the Olympic victor Promachos, who had statues, probably
alike, both at Olympia and in his native city Pellene.[2126] A double
of the base of the _Nike_ of Paionios at Olympia was discovered at
Delphi,[2127] and a fine head in the collection of Miss Hertz in Rome
is from the same original.[2128] A Polykleitan head in the British
Museum, similar to that of the _Westmacott Athlete_ (Pl. 19), seems
to be a contemporary replica of an original of the fifth century
B. C.[2129] Such examples (and many more could be cited) show the
difference between contemporary “doubles” and the later copies of Greek
masterpieces. The former are Greek originals in a very true sense,
made, as we assume the _Agias_ was, under the direct supervision of
noted sculptors. In this sense only the Delphian statue should be
called a copy.
HEAD OF A STATUE OF A BOY FROM SPARTA, AND THE ART OF SKOPAS.
[Illustration: FIG. 72.—Marble Head of a Boy, found near the Akropolis,
Sparta. In Private Possession in Philadelphia, U. S. A.]
We shall next discuss the beautiful Pentelic marble head of a boy,
with a lion’s scalp drawn over the top so that the muzzle comes down
over the forehead, which is said to have been discovered near the
Akropolis at Sparta in 1908 (Fig. 72). This head was for a time in the
University Museum, Philadelphia, and later was exhibited at the Boston
Museum of Fine Arts. At last accounts it was in private possession in
Philadelphia. It has been published as the head of a youthful Herakles
by my colleague, Professor W. N. Bates, in the _American Journal of
Archæology_.[2130] Of its style he says: “The points of resemblance
which the Philadelphia Heracles bears to the heads from the Tegean
pediments are so many and so striking that they must all be traced
back to the same sculptor; and that he was Skopas there can be little
doubt.” He therefore concludes that it is “probably a very good copy
of a lost work of Skopas.”[2131] A little later, Dr. L. D. Caskey, of
the Museum in Boston, found these resemblances hardly close enough,
in view of the influence of Skopas on later Greek sculpture, to
justify so definite an attribution.[2132] He found them confined to
the upper part of the face, while he believed that the lower portion
resembled heads which could be assigned to Praxiteles or his influence,
and consequently he pronounced the head “an eclectic work in which
features borrowed from Skopas and Praxiteles have been combined with an
unusually successful effect.”
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