Statue of Athlete – Ephesos
Vienna, Austria
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities
About Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
2nd century AD (copy after a Greek original from the last quarter of the 4th century BC); found in 1895
ANSA_VI_3168_5
Bronze
Height 192 cm
Ephesos
After competitions in the palestra (sports arena), it was customary for the athletes to clean the sand from their oiled bodies with a strigil, or scraping iron. The Ephesian athlete seen here has already finished this task and – with his hair still soaking in sweat – is cleaning the strigil itself. This statue cannot be attributed to any Greek artist with certainty, yet Roman reproductions in marble and depictions on pottery reliefs and engraved stones speak to a high degree of familiarity with the original.
"Statue of Athlete – Ephesos" in "Sharing History", Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://sharinghistory.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;AWE;at;18;en
MWNF Working Number: AT 019
Related Content
On display in
Sharing History Exhibition(s)
Rediscovering The Past | The Formation Of Museums | Museums In Europe Cities And Urban Spaces | Architecture And Construction | MonumentsDownload
As PDF (including images) As Word (text only)