Athlete Making an Offering (c. 450–425 BCE): Art, History and Details

Athlete Making an Offering (c. 450–425 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Standing in a classic contrapposto pose, with one leg straight and weight-bearing, the other bent and relaxed, this athlete pauses after victory. He turns his head gently, looking down to make an offering with his lost right hand. At the sites of their victories and in their home cities, champion athletes were often honored with such sculptures, glorifying the strength and beauty of the male form at both small and large scale.

Object facts

• Title: Athlete Making an Offering
• Date: c. 450–425 BCE
• Culture: Greece, probably from workshop of Locri or Tarentum, Classical Period
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: bronze (hollow cast)
• Dimensions: Overall: 21 cm (8 1/4 in.); without tang: 19.8 cm (7 13/16 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1955.684

A detail from the museum

The missing right arm and hand of this athlete were cast separately and attached.

Collection credit

Gift of the Hanna Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• Lee, Sherman E. "A Bronze from the Age of Pericles." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 46, no. 2 (1959): 19-24.
• Carter, Martha L. Classical Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1961.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.