Mirror Support: Athlete (460–450 BCE): Art, History and Details

Mirror Support: Athlete (460–450 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

A muscular nude youth strides forward on a square metal plate with his arms outstretched. The plate and the volute decoration that adorns his head suggest that this statuette was the support for a mirror. The youth is likely an athlete, as he holds an alabastron or oil vessel in his right hand. The oil may be an offering to the gods for victory, or to rub onto the skin to protect and beautify his body before an athletic contest. The mirror was made separately and would have been attached to the triangular tang above the athlete’s head.

Object facts

• Title: Mirror Support: Athlete
• Date: 460–450 BCE
• Culture: South Italy, Locri (?), Greek
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: bronze
• Dimensions: Overall: 22.5 cm (8 7/8 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1928.659

A detail from the museum

Most Greek mirror stands depict female figures, but this one depicts a male.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Bieber, Margaret. "Greek Sculpture in the Cleveland Museum of Art," Art in America. (July, 1943).
• Wunderlich, Silvia. "A Bronze Patera Handle." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 34, no. 7 (September 1947): 164-166.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.

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.