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A Head of Athena, formerly in the Disney Collection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

By the kindness of Philip Nelson, Esq., M.B., I am enabled to publish another head which he has recently acquired, and which is, perhaps, even more interesting than the head of an athlete from the same collection that I published last year. The Athena, which forms the subject of the present paper, was a part of the collection of sculpture made in Italy by Hollis and Brand, mostly from 1748–1753; this particular head is said to have been brought from Rome by Mr. Lloyd, and bought of him by Mr. Thomas Hollis in 1761. Together with the rest of this collection it passed into the hands of John Disney, and is represented upon Plate I. of the Museum Disneianum, published by him in 1843; and this place of honour is certainly merited, for it stands out most conspicuously for its artistic quality among the rest of the Disney marbles. When Disney in 1850 presented the greater part of his collection to the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, this head of Athena, and also the archaic statuette of Apollo, represented on Plate XXIV. of the Museum Disneianum, remained behind at the Hyde, Ingatestone. There it was left until disposed of by sale in 1885; but it aroused no attention until its acquisition by Dr. Nelson, to whom I am indebted not only for my knowledge of the head, but also for the admirable negatives from which Plate I. has been reproduced.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1899

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References

page 1 note 1 I do not know what has become of this Apollo, which, after the Athena, is the most interesting of Disney's marbles. It was a torso restored by Flaxman.

page 3 note 1 Possibly Prof. Michaelis may have added this reference from a list of Disney's plates, without the plates themselves before him. Then the identification of this head of Athena with Mus. Disn. Plate I. would be a very natural inference.

page 3 note 2 And wrongly restored; it projects too far, as may easily be seen by following the curve of the ancient portion.

page 3 note 3 So rightly described in Schreiber-Anderson, Atlas, p. 68Google Scholar. Patroclus on this vase is evidently represented as a fully armed hoplite; there is no ground for imagining the cap to be his only head-covering. The strange assertion of Baumeister, (Denkmäler, p. 8Google Scholar) that he is an archer is due to a misinterpretation of the loosened shoulder-piece of the breast-plate.

page 3 note 4 Schreiber-Anderson Atlas, Plate XXXV. The end of such a pad is visible under the back of the helmet in our head; it is in the restored part, but must have been imitated by the restorer from indications on the piece of the original he cut away to make the nose out of it.

page 4 note 1 A very different effect may be obtained by tilting the head further back, as is often done, rightly or wrongly, with some similar heads. But the Cretan Athena in the Louvre shows the true position, which is nearly as in the photograph on Plate I.

page 5 note 1 Figured in my Handbook of Greek Sculpture, Fig. 101.

page 5 note 2 Whatever opinion we may hold as to many details in Klein's Praxiteles, we must acknowledge a fine and correct criticism in his appreciation of Alcamenes as the forerunner of Praxiteles, in ideas and feeling rather than in formal tradition of style.

page 6 note 1 The flap of this cap, in a form resembling that seen in the Glienicke head, occurs also in the Pallas Giustiniani and its numerous replicas; but these are too different in type to cause any confusion.

page 6 note 2 Friederichs-Wolters, 1438; Mon. Inst. iv. 1, Müller-Wieseler ii. 19, 198a.

page 6 note 3 Jahreshefte i. p. 55; cf. Eranos Vindobonensis.

page 6 note 4 I. 14, 6.

page 6 note 5 I must confess to much doubt about this ἄνθ༵μον argument; it may be merely an ornament affixed within the shield. But, finding that Dr. Reisch's arguments have led to a conclusion which is strangely in accord with new evidence, I think it only fair to give the steps of his reasoning.

page 8 note 1 It has been suggested to me by Mr. G. F. Hill that Athena Hephaestia is a title very difficult to parallel in Greek mythology, if the name be derived directly from Hephaestus; such epithets are more commonly local in origin, and this one suggests Hephaestia in Lemnos, where there was a prominent cult of the goddess, attested by coins, and where she was associated in worship with Hephaestus. He further suggests that the famous Athena Lemnia of Phidias, whose association with Athenian cleruchs is a mere conjecture, was but another form of this Athena Hephaestia. In both alike the goddess was represented in her more peaceful aspect, as patroness of art and handicraft. The suggestion of a Lemnian association is peculiarly appropriate in a work attributed to Alcamenes, who was himself a Lemnian. Thus we add yet another to the many coincidences that give cumulative weight to the suggestions considered in this paper.

page 9 note 1 Friederichs-Wolters' Bausteine, no. 1438.

page 9 note 2 Roscher, , Art. Athena. p. 703Google Scholar.

page 10 note 1 Cf. Müller-Wieseler, ii. 233; cf. Clarac, 467, 879; 470, 894; 471, 900; 473, 899c.

page 10 note 2 Imhoof and Gardner, Plate AA. VII.

page 10 note 3 In this respect it resembles the Athena Giustiniani, which, though otherwise dissimilar, also has the himation thrown over the left shoulder.

page 10 note 4 Arch. Stud. Brunn, p. 48.

page 11 note 1 Clarac, 462C, 888E.

page 11 note 2 Furtwängler (Röscher, p. 702) notes the affinity of this Berlin statue with Cephisodotus.

page 11 note 3 I shall perhaps be expected to justify an attribution to Alcamenes by comparison with other extant statues that have been attributed to him. But I have purposely abstained from doing so, because the evidence in all these cases is very problematical. Perhaps the best attested is the Proene, and Itys, (Antike Denkmäler ii. 22Google Scholar; cf. Winter, , Arch. Anz. 1894, p. 46Google Scholar); in this figure the drapery resembles to a remarkable degree that of the Cretan statue.