The Oil Pourer is a lost Greek bronze

Ancient Greek sculpture

Ancient Greek sculpture is the sculpture of Ancient Greece. Modern scholarship identifies three major stages. They were used to depict the battles, mythology, and rulers of the land known as Ancient Greece.-Geometric:...

 of an athlete variously associated with the circle of Lysippos

Lysippos

Lysippos was a Greek sculptor of the 4th century BC. Together with Scopas and Praxiteles, he is considered one of the three greatest sculptors of the Classical Greek era, bringing transition into the Hellenistic period. Problems confront the study of Lysippos because of the difficulty of...

, c. 340-330 BCE, of which Roman marble copies exist, notably in the Glyptothek

Glyptothek

The Glyptothek is a museum in Munich, Germany, which was commissioned by the Bavarian King Ludwig I to house his collection of Greek and Roman sculptures . It was designed by Leo von Klenze in the Neoclassical style, and built from 1816 to 1830...

, Munich (illustration) and in the Albertinum

Albertinum

The Albertinum is a famous fine art museum in Dresden, Germany, close to Brühl's Terrace and the Zwinger.- History :The Albertinum, named after Saxon king Albert, was built between 1884 and 1887 by Carl Adolf Canzler on the site of a former armoury to serve as a public museum and archive...

, Dresden. Another well-known Roman replica is conserved at Petworth House

Petworth House

Petworth House in Petworth, West Sussex, England, is a late 17th-century mansion, rebuilt in 1688 by Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, and altered in the 1870s by Anthony Salvin...

. There is a head of this type at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
The Oil Pourer is similar in proportions and manner to the Lysippean Agias of which there is a Roman marble copy at Delphi

Delphi

Delphi is both an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis.In Greek mythology, Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and a major site for the worship of the god...

.

The athlete is represented pouring oil from a flask held high in his (missing) right hand into the (missing) palm of his left. The theme is represented on Attic vase-painting

Pottery of Ancient Greece

As the result of its relative durability, pottery is a large part of the archaeological record of Ancient Greece, and because there is so much of it it has exerted a disproportionately large influence on our understanding of Greek society...

and in freely reinterpreted cast terracotta miniatures.

The Munich sculpture was treated in the 19th century with acid to clean it, which has dissolved about 2mm off its surfaces.