| The Chatsworth Head | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Year | c.460 BCE |
| Type | Cast bronze |
| Dimensions | 31.6 cm(12.4 in) |
| Location | British Museum, London |
The Chatsworth Head is a slightly over-life-size bronze head dating to around 460 BCE which is now in the British Museum.
| The Chatsworth Head | |
|---|---|
| | |
| Year | c.460 BCE |
| Type | Cast bronze |
| Dimensions | 31.6 cm(12.4 in) |
| Location | British Museum, London |
The Chatsworth Head is a slightly over-life-size bronze head dating to around 460 BCE which is now in the British Museum.
The head was originally part of a complete statue, probably (judging by the shoulder-length curly hair) one of Apollo, made up of various sections (e.g. head, arms, legs, some of the locks of hair) produced separately by lost-wax casting then joined into one whole - a leg from the same sculpture is in the Louvre (Br 69). Its eyes probably originally held glass, marble or ivory inlays, which were held in with surviving bronze plates, which curl outwards to form eyelashes. Its lips seem to have been plated with reddish copper to imitate their natural colour. [1]
In 1834, the Louvre managed to purchase the first large bronze statue found in modern times after its discovery in Italy near the Island of Elba. Two years later a complete statue was discovered near Tamassos on Cyprus and was immediately retrieved by locals who dragged it from its position using oxcarts. During its journey the statue fell apart losing legs, arms and its torso. [2]
The head was acquired by the 6th Duke of Devonshire at Smyrna from H.P. Borrell in 1838. [3] The other parts of the statue were lost, but it is believed that a leg in the Louvre was originally part of this statue. [2]
The 6th Duke of Devonshire and his successors kept it at their residence of Chatsworth House, from which it takes its name. It was loaned to the Fitzwilliam Museum in the mid-1930s, and was acquired from the 11th Duke by the British Museum in 1958. It has the British Museum catalogue reference 1958 0418 1 and is on show there, in Room 15.
Chatsworth House is a stately home in the Derbyshire Dales, 4 miles (6.4 km) north-east of Bakewell and 9 miles (14 km) west of Chesterfield, England. The seat of the Duke of Devonshire, it has belonged to the Cavendish family since 1549. It stands on the east bank of the River Derwent, across from hills between the Derwent and Wye valleys, amid parkland backed by wooded hills that rise to heather moorland.
Praxiteles of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attica sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue. While no indubitably attributable sculpture by Praxiteles is extant, numerous copies of his works have survived; several authors, including Pliny the Elder, wrote of his works; and coins engraved with silhouettes of his various famous statuary types from the period still exist.
The Charioteer of Delphi, also known as Heniokhos, is a statue surviving from Ancient Greece, and an example of ancient bronze sculpture. The life-size (1.8m) statue of a chariot driver was found in 1896 at the Sanctuary of Apollo in Delphi. It is now in the Delphi Archaeological Museum.
The sculpture of ancient Greece is the main surviving type of fine ancient Greek art as, with the exception of painted ancient Greek pottery, almost no ancient Greek painting survives. Modern scholarship identifies three major stages in monumental sculpture in bronze and stone: the Archaic, Classical (480–323) and Hellenistic. At all periods there were great numbers of Greek terracotta figurines and small sculptures in metal and other materials.
Below are notable events in archaeology that occurred in 1838.
The Chimera of Arezzo is regarded as the best example of ancient Etruscan art. The British art historian David Ekserdjian described the sculpture as "one of the most arresting of all animal sculptures and the supreme masterpiece of Etruscan bronze-casting". Made entirely of bronze and measuring 78.5 cm high with a length of 129 cm, it was found alongside a small collection of other bronze statues in Arezzo, an ancient Etruscan and Roman city in Tuscany. The statue was originally part of a larger sculptural group representing a fight between a chimera and the Greek hero Bellerophon. This sculpture is likely to have been created as a votive offering to the Etruscan god Tinia and is held by the National Archaeological Museum, Florence.
1836 in archaeology.
The Victorious Youth, also known as Atleta di Fano, Lisippo di Fano, or Getty Bronze, is a Greek bronze sculpture, made between 300 and 100 BCE, in the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, displayed at the Getty Villa Museum in Pacific Palisades, California.
The Artemision Bronze is an ancient Greek sculpture that was recovered from the sea off Cape Artemision, in northern Euboea, Greece. According to most scholars, the bronze represents Zeus, the thunder-god and king of gods, though it has also been suggested it might represent Poseidon. The statue is slightly over lifesize at 2.09 meters, and would have held either a thunderbolt, if Zeus, or a trident if Poseidon. The empty eye-sockets were originally inset, probably with bone, as well as the eyebrows, the lips, and the nipples. The sculptor is unknown. The statue is a highlight of the collections in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.
The Piraeus Apollo is an ancient Greek bronze sculpture in the archaic style from the 2nd or 1st century BC, exhibited now at the Archaeological Museum of Piraeus, Athens.
The Sounion Kouros is an early archaic Greek statue of a naked young man or kouros carved in marble from the island of Naxos around 600 BCE. It is one of the earliest examples that scholars have of the kouros-type which functioned as votive offerings to gods or demi-gods, and were dedicated to heroes. Found near the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion, this kouros was found badly damaged and heavily weathered. It was restored to its original height of 3.05 meters (10.0 ft) returning it to its larger than life size. It is now held by the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.
The Piraeus Athena is a bronze statue dated to the fourth century BCE. It currently resides in the Archaeological Museum of Piraeus.
Piraeus Artemis refers to two bronze statues of Artemis excavated in Piraeus, Athens in 1959, along with a large theatrical mask and three pieces of marble sculptures. Two other statues were found in the buried cache as well: a larger-than-lifesize bronze Late Archaic Apollo and a similarly sized bronze fourth century-style Athena. Both statues are now exhibited in the Archaeological Museum of Piraeus in Athens.
The statue of James II is a bronze sculpture located in the front garden of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom. Probably inspired by French statues of the same period, it depicts James II of England as a Roman emperor, wearing Roman armour and a laurel wreath. It originally also depicted him holding a baton. It was produced by the workshop of Grinling Gibbons. The execution was most likely, according to contemporary accounts, the work of the Flemish sculptors Peter van Dievoet from Brussels and Laurens van der Meulen from Mechlin, rather than of Gibbons himself. The statue has been relocated several times since it was first erected in the grounds of the old Palace of Whitehall in 1686, only two years before James II was deposed.
The Bronze Head of Hypnos is a Roman copy of an ancient Greek statue found at Civitella d'Arna near Perugia in central Italy. Widely copied since its discovery in the early nineteenth century, it has been part of the British Museum's collection since 1868.
The Arundel Head is a Hellenistic bronze portrait of a dramatist or king from Asia Minor, now kept in the British Museum. Dating to the 2nd-1st centuries BC, the head once belonged to the famous English collector of classical antiquities, Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel.
The Cleveland Apollo is a 4th-century BCE life-size bronze Ancient Greek statue, now in the Cleveland Museum of Art. It acquired it in 2004 using the Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund. The Museum attributed the piece to Praxiteles. Technical features of the Cleveland Apollo are consistent with the Late Classical Period, during Praxiteles's lifetime. Scientific investigation of the sculpture and the separated parts shows that they are from the same casting. The age of the casting is still under review as of 2017. Scholarly investigation has raised several questions about it being a Praxiteles original.
Carol C. Mattusch is the Mathay Professor of Art History at George Mason University. She is a specialist in Greek, Roman and 18th century art.
Archaic Greek Sculpture represents the first stages of the formation of a sculptural tradition that became one of the most significant in the entire history of Western Art. The Archaic period of Ancient Greece is poorly delimited, and there is great controversy among scholars on the subject. It is generally considered to begin between 700 and 650 BC and end between 500 and 480 BC, but some indicate a much earlier date for its beginning, 776 BC, the date of the first Olympiad. In this period the foundations were laid for the emergence of large-scale autonomous sculpture and monumental sculpture for the decoration of buildings. This evolution depended in its origins on the oriental and Egyptian influence, but soon acquired a peculiar and original character.
The column of the Temple of Poseidon is one of the surviving features from the period of the sixth Duke of Devonshire in the Chatsworth House garden. Surmounted by an over life-sized bronze bust of the sixth Duke, the classical Greek column composed of four Doric marble drums was erected in 1840s. It is located at the south termination of the Serpentine Hedge, by the midpoint of a footpath linking between the Maze and the south end of the Broadwalk. The object has been Grade II registered since 1987.
