Anonymous Attic Greek artists Wrestling Youths ca. 430 BC red-figure kylix British Museum |
Anonymous Attic Greek artists Wrestling Match 332-31 BC black-figure amphora (Panathenaic Prize) British Museum |
"Milo won six victories for wrestling at Olympia, one of them among the boys; at Pytho he won six among the men and one among the boys. He came to Olympia to wrestle for a seventh time, but did not succeed in mastering Timasitheus, a fellow citizen who was also a young man, and who refused, moreover, to come to close quarters with him. It is further stated that Milo carried his own statue into the Altis. His feats with the pomegranate and the quoits are also remembered by tradition. He would grasp a pomegranate so firmly that nobody could wrest it from him by force, and yet he did not damage it by pressure. He would stand upon a greased quoit, and make fools of those who charged at him and tried to push him from the quoit. . . . They say that he was killed by wild beasts. The story has it that he came across in the land of Crotona a tree-trunk that was drying up; wedges were inserted to keep the trunk apart. Milo in his pride thrust his hands into the trunk, the wedges slipped, and Milo was held fast by the trunk until the wolves – a beast that roves in vast packs in the land of Crotona – made him their prey. Such was the fate that overtook Milo."
– Pausanias, from The Description of Greece (2nd century BC), translated by W.H.S. Jones (1933)
Anonymous Roman artists Wrestler ca. AD 200 mosaic fragment British Museum |
Daniele da Volterra Wrestlers before 1566 drawing British Museum |
Melchior Lorck Public Wrestler 1582 woodcut British Museum |
Antonio Tempesta Seven Wonders of the World - Statue of Jupiter at Olympia (wrestlers in foreground) 1608 etching British Museum |
Anonymous copyist after Parmigianino Nine nudes including wrestlers ca. 1620 drawing (probably made in London for the Arundel collection) British Museum |
Johannes van den Avelen after Jan Goeree Classical statue of wrestlers in Roman arena ca. 1698 etching, engraving (book illustration, title-page) British Museum |
William Walker after Charles Elsen Hercules defeats Antaeus, who opposes his passage into Africa ca. 1774-78 etching (working proof, book-illustration for Ovid) British Museum |
Toshusai Sharaku Kabuki Actors (named) portraying famous Wrestlers (named) ca. 1794-95 color woodblock print British Museum |
Katsukawa Shuntei Famous Sumo Wrestlers (named) before 1820 color woodblock print British Museum |
Utagawa Kuniyoshi Tattooed Wrestler (named) defeating opponent ca. 1827-30 color woodblock print British Museum |
Kagaya Kichiemon Tattooed Wrestler (named) throwing opponent (named) ca. 1830-32 color woodblock print British Museum |
after Georg Volmar Lutteurs dans le canton de Berne before 1831 hand-colored aquatint British Museum |
Rodolphe Julian Lutteurs ca. 1860 drawing British Museum |
Henri Gaudier-Brzeska Wrestlers ca. 1910-15 linocut British Museum |
Maurice Busset La Parade des Lutteurs 1920 woodcut British Museum |
Daphne Lindner All-in Wrestling 1936 etching British Museum |
Khosrow Hassanzadeh Iranian wrestler and hero Takhti 2007 multimedia assemblage British Museum |