A GREEK BRONZE FIGURE OF ATHENA PROMACHOS

CIRCA EARLY 5TH CENTURY B.C.

Details

A GREEK BRONZE FIGURE OF ATHENA PROMACHOS
Circa Early 5th Century B.C.
Standing with her left leg slightly advanced, her left arm projecting forward, her right raised and perhaps originally holding a spear, wearing a tightly-fitted peplos with a column of vertical folds in the front terminating in a step-pattern at the hem, a himation draped over her shoulders and falling to either side, forming an inverted V in the front, the edges embellished with zig-zag, her aegis worn over the himation in back, with flaps over the shoulders that meet between her rounded breasts, the aegis with incised scales, with eight perforations between the deep fold formed below her raised arm where the front and back of the garments fall together, the perforations perhaps for insertion of snakes, her crested helmet also with finely incised feathering, the broad crest with a central mortise for insertion of additions, her hair with a spiraling fringe along the forehead, falling in a mass in back and detailed by incised horizontal bands, her oval face with lidded almond-shaped eyes beneath modelled brows
7 1/8 in. (18.1 cm) high

Provenance

Dr. Jacob Hirsch
Antike Kunstwerke, Ars Antiqua A.G., Luzern, 2 May 1959, lot 65

Lot Essay

For a related example see no. 20 in Comstock and Vermeule, Greek, Etruscan & Roman Bronzes in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Both bronzes and others listed by the authors (op. cit. p. 23) are thought to be miniature versions of "the late Archaic Athena Promachos destroyed by the Persians when they sacked the Acropolis in 480 B.C."

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