Javelin thrower

Bronze. Mid-5th century BCE. Northern Peloponnesian (Olympia?).
Height: 8 cm. Private collection, Geneva

Javelin thrower.

Bronze. Mid-5th century BCE. Northern Peloponnesian (Olympia?).
Height: 8 cm.

Private collection, Geneva.

Origin:

No indication.

Description:

Solid-cast by the lost wax process, with some cold-working and burnished.

Condition: patina bronze medal colour, very small pitting over a great part of the surface.

Tip of nose abraded; right hand and left forearm missing as well as feet. The inserted penis a modern restoration.

Represented in the final phase of the discipline, running, his left arm forward for balance, his right arm raised, he is about to release the javelin.

We know of no valid comparison.

Dated by its style and attributed by what seem to be reminiscences of Northern Peloponnesian sculpture, though neither Sparta nor Thessaly are to be totally excluded.

A bronze rider in the Museum of Mariemont¹ from the island of Keos bears some resemblance to our figure for the head and for the relatively flat thighs, though the latter would be natural for a horseman. However, it may be that the photograph is misleading.

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¹ Belgium, Museum of Mariemont 188: G. Faider-Feytmans, Les
Antiquités du Musée du Mariemont (1952), G. 56 (188), pp. 86—7, pl. 31.

G. Ortiz

Literature:

Exhibited and Published: Art Antique. Collections privées de Suisse Romande, Musée Rath Geneva (1975), cat. no. 266. Le Sport dans la Grèce Antique. Du Jeu à la Compétition, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, 23 January — 19 April 1992 (catalogues in French and Flemish); El Déporte en la Grecia Antigua. La génesis del olimpismo, Centre Cultural of the Fundació “la Caixa”, Barcelona, 13 May — 9 August 1992 (catalogues in Spanish and Catalan); cat. no. 147, p. 283.
R. Thomas. Athletenstatuetten der Spätarchaik und des Strengen Stils (1981), pp. 49—50, 151 no. 730, pl. XXI, 2.

Credits:

© 1993. Photo, text: Olympism in antiquity. Olympic Museum Lausanne. Bertelsmann UFA. Industria Gráfica S. A. Barcelona, 1993, p. 103 cat. no. 46.
© Photograph — P. Goetelen (Geneva).
© 1993 — Comité International Olympique.

THE GALLERY OF ANCIENT ART

Keywords: γλυπτική sculptura sculpture sculptural scultura skulptur greek greca greco greche griechische griechisches grecque grecquesё χάλκινο bronze bronzo bronzeo bronzen statuette figurine javelin thrower

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