Amazon statue types
Encyclopedia
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
records five bronze statues of Amazons
Amazons
The Amazons are a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia...
in the Artemision
Temple of Artemis
The Temple of Artemis , also known less precisely as the Temple of Diana, was a Greek temple dedicated to a goddess Greeks identified as Artemis and was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was situated at Ephesus , and was completely rebuilt three times before its eventual destruction...
of Ephesus
Ephesus
Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...
. He explains the existence of such a quantity of sculptures on the same theme in the same place by describing a 5th century BC competition between the artists Polyclitus, Phidias
Phidias
Phidias or the great Pheidias , was a Greek sculptor, painter and architect, who lived in the 5th century BC, and is commonly regarded as one of the greatest of all sculptors of Classical Greece: Phidias' Statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World...
, Kresilas
Kresilas
Kresilas was a Greek sculptor from Kydonia. He lived in the 5th century BC. He worked in Athens at the time of the Peloponnesian war, as a follower of the idealistic portraiture of Myron.-Pericles statue:...
, "Kydon" and Phradmon
Phradmon
Phradmon was a little-known sculptor from Argos, whom Pliny places as the contemporary of Polykleitos, Myron, Pythagoras, Scopas, and Perelius, at Olympiad 90 in 420 BC, in giving an anecdotal description of a competition for a Wounded Amazon for the temple of Artemis at Ephesus: in Pliny's...
; thus:
This anecdote encouraged the much-discussed identifications of four known types of Roman marble copies of the wounded Amazon with sculptors of lost originals that may be dated to 430 BC on stylistic grounds. These types, each well represented by numerous Roman copies and heads, are identified with three of Pliny's five sculptors; a type derived from Phradmon has not been identified. Of these, however, only the identification of the Mattei type as deriving from Phidias's original is undisputed. The assignment of the Sciarra-type as deriving from Polyclitus's original and Sosicles-type as deriving from Kresilas's original (or vice versa), on the other hand, is unestablished, although having been discussed since 1897. The German scholar R. Bolnach has written a thorough form-analysis for the Sciarra/Polycletus and Sosikles/Kresilas pairings.
Dietrich von Bothmer
Dietrich von Bothmer
Dietrich Felix von Bothmer was a German-born American art historian, who spent six decades as a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he developed into the world's leading specialist in the field of ancient Greek vases.-Early life and education:...
dismissed the Plinian anecdote as an etiological
Etiology
Etiology is the study of causation, or origination. The word is derived from the Greek , aitiologia, "giving a reason for" ....
embroidery invented to account for the five statues of wounded Amazons of varying styles. Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway
Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway
Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway, born in 1929 in Chieti , is an art historian and specialist in ancient Greek sculpture.-Life:The daughter of an Italian officer, she spent her childhood in Ethiopia, where her father is stationed. After World War II, she studied classics at the University of Messina,...
presented her doubts ("it is difficult to see why all five Amazons were set up if only one 'won' and became the object of the dedication"), noting Pliny's awareness of the discrepancies in age of the sculptors; she presented an alternative, cumulative origin, building on fifth century prototypes, added to by Phradmon
Phradmon
Phradmon was a little-known sculptor from Argos, whom Pliny places as the contemporary of Polykleitos, Myron, Pythagoras, Scopas, and Perelius, at Olympiad 90 in 420 BC, in giving an anecdotal description of a competition for a Wounded Amazon for the temple of Artemis at Ephesus: in Pliny's...
, whom she identifies as a fourth-century sculptor, and supplemented by later classicizing models.
Types
The usual designations of the statues, following Adolf Furtwängler, group them under the headings the Lansdowne type, the Capitoline type, the Mattei type and the single example known as the Villa Doria Pamphilj type. A fifth type was excavated at the theater of Ephesus in 1898 but did not enter the discussion until the 1950s.All five types show a standing female with a similar head and face, and (as with the Venus Genetrix
Venus Genetrix (sculpture)
The sculptural type of Venus Genetrix shows Venus in her aspect of Genetrix , as she was honoured by the Julio-Claudian dynasty of Rome, who followed the precedent of Julius Caesar in claiming her as their ancestor...
) are clothed in a peplos
Peplos
A peplos is a body-lengthGreek garment worn by women before 500 BC. The peplos is a tubular cloth folded inside-out from the top about halfway down, altering what was the top of the tube to the waist and the bottom of the tube to ankle-length. The garment is then gathered about the waist and the...
that has fallen from one or both shoulders to leave her bare-breasted. Their differences are most obvious when the three sculptures, or casts therof, are displayed together, as at the Casts Gallery at the Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
Classics
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...
Faculty. The pose, with one arm resting on the head, is comparable to that of the Apollo Lykeios.
Amazon Mattei type
2.11m high, and of the AugustanAugustus
Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...
era, this type is derived from Phidias's original. Discovered in 1770 and taken into the Mattei
Mattei (Rome)
thumb|200px|right|Cortile Mattei di GioveThe House of Mattei was one of the most powerful noble families of Rome during the Middle Ages and early modern era, holding high positions in the papal curia and government office...
collection, it is now in the Vatican Museums
Vatican Museums
The Vatican Museums , in Viale Vaticano in Rome, inside the Vatican City, are among the greatest museums in the world, since they display works from the immense collection built up by the Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries, including some of the most renowned classical sculptures and...
. The figure looks down, with her right arm parrying and her left arm by her side with a quiver under it, though both arms, the head, and the left shoulder are all restorations. Another copy of this type is at the Capitoline Museums.
Amazon Sciarra type
1.94 m high, this copy dates to the era of TiberiusTiberius
Tiberius , was Roman Emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla. His mother divorced Nero and married Augustus in 39 BC, making him a step-son of Octavian...
and is derived from Polyclitus's or Kresilas's original. It was found in Rome in 1868 in the Gardens of Sallust
Gardens of Sallust
The Gardens of Sallust were Roman gardens developed by the Roman historian Sallust in the 1st century BC. The landscaped pleasure gardens occupied a large area in the northwestern sector of Rome, in what would become Region VI, between the Pincian and Quirinal hills, near the Via Salaria and later...
, and is now in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek
The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek is an art museum in Copenhagen, Denmark...
, Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, The figure is resting her left arm on a column and her right hand behind her head, with her face leaning to one side. Her nose, right arm from the deltoid muscle
Deltoid muscle
In human anatomy, the deltoid muscle is the muscle forming the rounded contour of the shoulder. Anatomically, it appears to be made up of three distinct sets of fibers though electromyography suggests that it consists of at least seven groups that can be independently coordinated by the central...
downwards, the left forearm below the elbow, both hands, and the right foot and ankle have all been restored since discovery.
Amazon "Capitoline" or Sosicles type
This type is known principally from the 2.02 m high 2nd century AD marble copy (signed by SosiclesSosicles (Sculptor)
Sosicles was a Roman sculptor in the mid 2nd century AD. He worked as copyist of ancient Greek masterpieces. He is known from his signature shown on a marble plinth from Tusculum and the column of a marble statue of a wounded Amazon...
), deriving from Polyclitus's or Kresilas's original. It was discovered in 1733, went into the collection of Cardinal Giuseppe Albani, and is now in the Capitoline Museums
Capitoline Museums
The Capitoline Museums are a group of art and archeological museums in Piazza del Campidoglio, on top of the Capitoline Hill in Rome, Italy. The museums are contained in three palazzi surrounding a central trapezoidal piazza in a plan conceived by Michelangelo Buonarroti in 1536 and executed over...
, Rome (Room 33). The figure has her left arm across her body below her breasts, and her right hand raised and open-palmed, as she looks down towards the wound in her right-hand side. She wears a baldric
Baldric
A baldric is a belt worn over one shoulder that is typically used to carry a weapon or other implement such as a bugle or drum...
. The tip of nose, lower lip, left forearm, and hand with drapery have been restored since discovery.http://www.museicapitolini.org/percorsi/percorsi_per_sale/museo_capitolino/salone/statua_di_amazzone_ferita_firmata_da_sosikles
It was (before and after Sosicles's time) copied as a complete statue, as a bust
Bust (sculpture)
A bust is a sculpted or cast representation of the upper part of the human figure, depicting a person's head and neck, as well as a variable portion of the chest and shoulders. The piece is normally supported by a plinth. These forms recreate the likeness of an individual...
or as a herm
Herma
A Herma, commonly in English herm is a sculpture with a head, and perhaps a torso, above a plain, usually squared lower section, on which male genitals may also be carved at the appropriate height...
, both in stone in the same size as the original and in miniature in bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
.
Lansdowne Amazon
A possible fourth is the Lansdowne Amazon, said to have been found in Tor Colombara by Gavin HamiltonGavin Hamilton (artist)
Gavin Hamilton was a Scottish neoclassical history painterwho is more widely remembered for his hunts for antiquities in the neighborhood of Rome...
, though it may be a variant on the Sciarra-type. Later at Lansdowne House
Lansdowne House
Lansdowne House is a building to the southwest of Berkeley Square in central London, England. It was designed by Robert Adam as a private house and for most of its time as a residence it belonged to the Petty family, Marquesses of Lansdowne. Since 1935, it has been the home of the Lansdowne Club....
, it is now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
. Half of the nose, the right arm from middle of the biceps to wrist, the tip of the thumb, and other details have been restored since discovery.
Villa Doria Pamphilj Amazon
Adolf Furtwängler attributed a much-restored Wounded Amazon at the Villa Doria Pamphilj, Rome, to the Ephesus group, an attribution that was challenged in 1951 by C.P. Sestieri, who identified the sculpture instead as a classicising Roman work, and a representation of DianaDiana (mythology)
In Roman mythology, Diana was the goddess of the hunt and moon and birthing, being associated with wild animals and woodland, and having the power to talk to and control animals. She was equated with the Greek goddess Artemis, though she had an independent origin in Italy...
. Dietrich von Bothmer's systematic study omitted the Dori-Pamphilj sculture as insecurely identified and too much restored, while H. von Steuben in W. Helbig, Führer durch die öffentlichen Sammlungen klassischer Altertümer in Rom, (Tübingen) 4th ed. identifies it as an eclectic classicizing work modelled on the Lansdowne Wounded Amazon.
Ephesus Amazon
A fifth Amazon type was unearthed at the theatre of EphesusEphesus
Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...
in 1898 but languished unpublished.