Sunday, September 24, 2017

Former Abundance of Ancient Statues

Barberini Faun
ca. 220 BC
Hellenistic marble sculpture
Glyptothek, Munich

Aphrodite
2nd century BC
Greek marble sculpture
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Colossal torso
160-130 BC
Hellenistic marble sculpture
British Museum

"The Romans themselves bore so great reverence for these arts that besides the respect that Marcellus, in sacking the city of Syracuse, commanded to be paid to a craftsman famous in them, in planning the assault of the aforesaid city they took care not to set fire to that quarter wherein there was a most beautiful painted panel, which was afterwards carried to Rome in the triumph, with much pomp.  Thither, having, so to speak, despoiled the world, in course of time they assembled the craftsmen themselves as well as their finest works, wherewith afterwards Rome became so beautiful, for the reason that she gained so great adornment from the statues from abroad more than from her own native ones; it being known that in Rhodes, the city of an island in no way large, there were more than 30,000 statues counted, either in bronze or in marble, nor did the Athenians have less, while those at Olympia and at Delphi were many more and those in Corinth numberless, and all were most beautiful and of the greatest value.  Is it not known that Nicomedes, King of Lycia, in his eagerness for a Venus that was by the hand of Praxiteles, spent on it almost all the wealth of his people?  Did not Attalus the same, who, in order to possess the picture of Bacchus painted by Aristides, did not scruple to spend on it more than 6,000 sesterces?  Which picture was placed by Lucius Mummius in the temple of Ceres with the greatest pomp, in order to adorn Rome."  

 Giorgio Vasari, from the preface to his Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects (1564), translated by Gaston du C. de Vere (1912)

Grave-stele of family group
ca. 360 BC
Greek marble relief
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Nereid
390-380 BC
Marble statue from Nereid Monument in Lycia
British Museum

Ionic Youth
1st century BC
Eastern Greek marble statue
Prado, Madrid

Reclining Dionysos from the East Pediment of the Parthenon
447-432 BC
marble
British Museum

Funerary Lion
ca. 400-390 BC
Greek marble statue
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Temple column drum with relief figures
340-320-BC
Greek marble from Ephesus
British Museum

Votive relief of horse and youth
ca. 500 BC
Greek marble
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Head of Athena
ca. 420 BC
Greek marble
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Venus
425-400 BC
Greek marble from South Italy
formerly Getty Museum (now repatriated)

Horse
late 2nd - early 1st century BC
Hellenistic bronze
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Eye
ca. 5th-2nd century BC
glass and bronze, from bronze statue
Getty Museum, Los Angeles