Lemnian Athena
Encyclopedia
Athena
In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...
. According to Pausanias
Pausanias (geographer)
Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...
(1.28.2), the original bronze was created by Phidias
Phidias
Phidias or the great Pheidias , was a Greek sculptor, painter and architect, who lived in the 5th century BC, and is commonly regarded as one of the greatest of all sculptors of Classical Greece: Phidias' Statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World...
circa 450-440 BCE, for Athenians living on Lemnos
Lemnos
Lemnos is an island of Greece in the northern part of the Aegean Sea. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Lemnos peripheral unit, which is part of the North Aegean Periphery. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is Myrina...
to dedicate on the Acropolis
Acropolis
Acropolis means "high city" in Greek, literally city on the extremity and is usually translated into English as Citadel . For purposes of defense, early people naturally chose elevated ground to build a new settlement, frequently a hill with precipitous sides...
in Athens
Classical Athens
The city of Athens during the classical period of Ancient Greece was a notable polis of Attica, Greece, leading the Delian League in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League. Athenian democracy was established in 508 BC under Cleisthenes following the tyranny of Hippias...
, Greece
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
.
It is unclear whether any copies remain. In 1891 Adolf Furtwängler
Adolf Furtwängler
Adolf Furtwängler was a famous German archaeologist, teacher, art historian and museum director. He was the father of the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler and grandfather of the German archaeologist Andreas Furtwängler....
reconstructed two virtually identical, Roman marble statues which he claimed as copies of the original, and identified two Roman marble copies of the head alone. These completed statues were recreated by joining a poorly-preserved marble head (Dresden) and a plaster cast
Plaster cast
A plaster cast is a copy made in plaster of another 3-dimensional form. The original from which the cast is taken may be a sculpture, building, a face, a fossil or other remains such as fresh or fossilised footprints – particularly in palaeontology .Sometimes a...
of a similar Roman marble head, from the collection of Pelagio Palagi
Pelagio Palagi
thumb|250px|Statue of [[Amadeus VI|Green Count]], made by Pelagi, in [[Piazza Palazzo di Città]], [[Turin]].Pelagio Palagi was an Italian painter, sculptor and interior decorator.- Early life :...
(Bologna), to a pair of identical bodies in Dresden. Both reconstructions and attributions have been disputed; see below.
The sculptures concerned are:
- Two full reconstructions (A and B) in the Staatliche Museum, AlbertinumAlbertinumThe Albertinum is a famous fine art museum in Dresden, Germany, close to Brühl's Terrace and the Zwinger.- History :The Albertinum, named after Saxon king Albert, was built between 1884 and 1887 by Carl Adolf Canzler on the site of a former armoury to serve as a public museum and archive...
, DresdenDresdenDresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, with bodies purchased in 1728 from the Chigi collection, RomeRomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, ItalyItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
.
- The Palagi head at the Archaeological Museum of BolognaBolognaBologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
, Italy.
- A further head of this type, found at PozzuoliPozzuoliPozzuoli is a city and comune of the province of Naples, in the Italian region of Campania. It is the main city of the Phlegrean peninsula.-History:Pozzuoli began as the Greek colony of Dicaearchia...
is conserved in the Archaeological Museum of the Campi Phlegraei.
As reconstructed, the completed statues are pastiches of two Roman marbles, one for the head and the other for the body. Athena wears an unusual, cross-slung aegis
Aegis
An aegis is a large collar or cape worn in ancient times to display the protection provided by a high religious authority or the holder of a protective shield signifying the same, such as a bag-like garment that contained a shield. Sometimes the garment and the shield are merged, with a small...
decorated with the Gorgon's head
Gorgon
In Greek mythology, the Gorgon was a terrifying female creature. The name derives from the Greek word gorgós, which means "dreadful." While descriptions of Gorgons vary across Greek literature, the term commonly refers to any of three sisters who had hair of living, venomous snakes, and a...
. She is bare-headed, without shield, holding her helmet out in her extended right hand, and with her left grasping her spear near the top of the shaft.
Furtwängler's identification of the original Athena Lemnia with the Dresden statues and Palagi head was based upon study of an engraved gem and by interpretation of the following passages from Pausanias
Pausanias (geographer)
Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...
, Lucian, and Himerios
Himerius
Himerius , Greek sophist and rhetorician. 24 of his orations have reached us complete, and fragments of 12 others.- Life and works :...
:
- Pausanias 1.28.2:
- [On the Acropolis] there are also two other dedications, a statue of PericlesPericlesPericles was a prominent and influential statesman, orator, and general of Athens during the city's Golden Age—specifically, the time between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars...
, son of Xanthippos, and the most worth seeing of the works of PhidiasPhidiasPhidias or the great Pheidias , was a Greek sculptor, painter and architect, who lived in the 5th century BC, and is commonly regarded as one of the greatest of all sculptors of Classical Greece: Phidias' Statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World...
, the statue of Athena called the Lemnian after those who dedicated it.
- Lucian, Imagines 4 and 6: Lykinos: "Of all the works of Phidias, which one do you praise most highly?"
- Polystratos: "Which if not the Lemnia, on which he thought fit to inscribe his name? Or the Amazon leaning on her spear?
- ... From the KnidiaAphrodite of KnidosThe Aphrodite of Cnidus was one of the most famous works of the ancient Greek sculptor Praxiteles of Athens . It and its copies are often referred to as the Venus Pudica type, on account of her covering her naked vulva with her right hand...
the sculptor [of Panthea] will take only the head, ... allowing the hair, forehead, and that lovely brow-line to remain just as PraxitelesPraxitelesPraxiteles of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attic sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue...
made them, and the liquid yet clear and winsome gaze of the eyes shall stay as Praxiteles conceived it. But he will take the curve of the cheeks and the fore part of the face from Alkamenes' [Aphrodite] in the Gardens, plus her hands, graceful wrists, and supple, tapering fingers. But the facial contour, its softness, and her well-proportioned nose will be supplied by the Lemnian Athena of Phidias, who will also furnish the meeting of the lips and the neck, taken from the Amazon."
- HimeriosHimeriusHimerius , Greek sophist and rhetorician. 24 of his orations have reached us complete, and fragments of 12 others.- Life and works :...
, Oratio 68.4 (Colonna):
- Phidias did not always make images of Zeus, nor did he always cast Athena armed into bronze, but turned his art to the other gods and adorned the Maiden's cheeks with a rosy blush, so that in place of her helmet this should cover the goddess's beauty.
Furtwängler's logic has been disputed. "Hartswick has shown that the Palagi head in Bologna cannot have come from Dresden statue B, that the gems Furtwängler employed could be post-antique, and that the sources are impossibly vague." (Stewart) Some of Hartwick's own conclusions have been disputed in turn, i.e., that the head of Dresden A is alien and the entire Palagi type is Hadrianic. Stewart remarks, "So while the type remains intact and looks Phidian, Furtwängler's further hypotheses concerning its identity and date (451-448) remain unproven."