Athena, copy of Velletri type Artist: Unknown, possibly after Alkamenes

5th century B.C. (original)

Ancient Art

On view, 1st floor, Ancient Art

This colossal, now headless female figure is likely a Roman copy of a fifth-century B.C. Greek cult image. Some scholars have identified it as a copy in marble of a celebrated bronze statue of Athena sculpted by Alkamenes for the Temple of Hephaistos in Athens. Wearing the typical chiton (tunic) beneath a himation (mantle), she stands with her weight resting on her straightened left leg, while she bends her right knee. By comparison with another alleged Roman copy of the same Greek statue—the famous Velletri Athena in the Louvre—the Yale Athena can be reconstructed with a helmeted head, a raised right arm holding a spear, and a left arm held out in front of her body at waist level, with a phiale, or offering dish, in hand.

Medium

Marble, large crystal, possibly Thasos marble

Dimensions

statue without base: 95 11/16 in. (243 cm)
base: 6 5/16 × 33 1/2 × 28 in. (16 × 85.1 × 71.1 cm)
with base: 101 15/16 in., 2600 lb. (259 cm, 1179.35 kg)

Credit Line

Gift of deLancey Kountze, B.A. 1899

Accession Number

1928.385.2

Culture

Greek

Period

Roman (copy)

Classification

Sculpture

Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance
Purchased in Italy ca. 1870 by Mr. Kountze's father
Bibliography
  • Handbook of the Collections, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1992), 265, ill
  • Alan Shestack, "Director's Report for 1976," Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin 36, no. 3 (Fall 1977), 6–7, fig. 5
  • Seymour Howard, "The Lansdowne Bust of the Athena of Velletri," Bulletin - Los Angeles County Museum of Art 17 (1964), 11–12, fig. 7
  • Raissa Calza, Museo Ostiense (Rome: La Libreria dello stato, 1947), 23, fig. 111
  • Domenico Mustilli, Il Museo Mussolini, exh. cat. (Rome: La Libreria dello stato, 1939), 121, no. 293, fig. 77
  • Oskar Waldhauser, Die Antiken Skulpturen der Ermitage (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1936), 6, no. 222, fig. 8
  • Carl Bluemel, Roemische Kopien griechischer Skulpturen des fuenften Jahrhunderts v. Chr (Berlin: H. Schoetz & Co., 1931), 41, fig. 72
  • Associates in Fine Arts, Yale University, "Handbook: A Description of the Gallery of Fine Arts and the Collections," Bulletin of the Associates in Fine Arts at Yale University 5, nos. 1–3 (1931), 8, ill
  • P. V. C. B, "The Yale Athena," Bulletin of the Associates in Fine Arts at Yale University (1929), 47–48, ill
  • Arthur Hamilton Smith, A Catalogue of Sculpture in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum, 3 vols., exh. cat. (London: William Clowes and Sons, 1904), 26, no. 1569
  • Adolf Furtwängler, Meisterwerke der griechischen Plastik: Kunstgeschichtliche Untersuchungen (Leipzig, Germany: Giesecke & Devrient, 1893), 304-305, fig. 41-42
Object copyright
No Copyright - United States

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