Amazon Head - Item #435

13.5 Inches High x 9.25 Inches Wide x 10.5 Inches Deep

Life-size bust. According to Pliny the Elder, five sculptors competed against one another in the mid-5th century B.C.E. in hopes of winning the commission to sculpt a statue of a wounded Amazon for the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus (in modern-day Turkey). The competitors were supposedly Phidias, Polykleitos, Kresilas, Phradmon, and Kydon. Although the story may not be true, at least three statues of Amazons of the same size and style were created in fact around this time. The many surviving Roman copies of the statues - some complete and some fragmented - as well as additional heads are widely researched. The statues are categorized into types based on the few compositions. Noticeably, the hair and faces of all the Amazons are very similar and to the amateur eye, are barely able to be differentiated due to the artistic style utilized. The Amazons have wavy hair parted in the middle and gathered at the nape of the neck, and their faces are stoic and calm. Scholars have not come to a definitive conclusion as to which artists are responsible for the types, though they agree there are at least three types: the Mattei, the Sciarra (or Berlin or Lansdowne), and the Capitoline (or Sosikles). Based on the current research and comparisons of the heads, our cast is likely from the statue known as the Sciarra type, copies of which can be found in the museums noted below. In this type, the Amazon's chiton is only fastened at one shoulder, and both breasts are exposed. Her left arm rests on a pillar to which she slightly leans towards, and her right arm is up with her hand resting on her head. This raised arm reveals a wound near the right breast, depicted as droplets of blood.

Artist: Unknown

Museum: New Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, Pergamon Museum, Berlin, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Time Period: Ancient Roman, 1st-2nd century C.E.

Sources:

Grout, James. "The Wounded Amazon." Encyclopaedia Romana. University of Chicago, https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/greece/paganism/amazons.html. 

"Marble statue of a wounded Amazon." Museum number 32.11.4. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/253373.

"Sciarra Amazon." Museum number IN 1568. Museums' Collections. Art Index Denmark, https://www.kulturarv.dk/mussam/VisGenstand.action?genstandId=7552391. 

Sengoku-Haga, Kyoko, et al. "Polykleitos and His Followers at Work: How the Doryphoros Was Used." Artistry in Bronze: The Greeks and Their Legacy, XIXth International Congress on Ancient Bronzes, October 2015, Los Angeles, CA, edited by Jens M. Daehner, Kenneth Lapatin, and Ambra Spinelli, J. Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Conservation Institute, November 2017, http://www.getty.edu/publications/artistryinbronze/the-artist/10-haga-et-al/. 

"Wounded Amazon of Polyklet of Argos." Museum number SK 7. SMB-digital. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, http://www.smb-digital.de/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=collection&objectId=699156&viewType=detailView.