Athlete or Apollo (probably 100–1 BCE): Art, History and Details

Athlete or Apollo (probably 100–1 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This bronze statuette depicts a nude male, perhaps a young athlete or the youthful god Apollo. The figure is made from solid bronze, with a fillet of inlaid silver on his head. The figure’s right arm is broken off just above the elbow. If this is a statue of Apollo, he may have once held a bow and arrow; if it depicts an athlete, he could have held athletic equipment, a symbol of victory, or an offering dish.

Object facts

• Title: Athlete or Apollo
• Date: probably 100–1 BCE
• Culture: Greece, Macedonia(?)
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: bronze with silver inlays
• Dimensions: Overall: 30.8 x 9 cm (12 1/8 x 3 9/16 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1927.170

A detail from the museum

The eyes of this figure are decorated with inlaid silver.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Comstock, Helen. "A Group of Greek Bronze Statuettes," International Studio. (July 1926): 33-37.
• American Federation of Arts. The American Magazine of Art. New York, N.Y.: American Federation of Arts, 1927.
• Howard, Rossiter. “A Praxitelean Apollo.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 14, no. 7 (July 1927): 118–120.

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.