Pawing Bull (500–475 BCE): Art, History and Details

Pawing Bull (500–475 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

With its head slightly lowered and right foreleg raised in a pawing motion, this robust bull seems poised for action. The pose closely resembles that of bulls on coins minted at Thurii, a Greek colony in South Italy, but the statuette seems earlier in date and could have other associations. Perhaps the bull once carried the princess Europa, for example, or battled a lion or a hero. Alternatively, it may have stood alone as a small-scale offering, representing the actual bulls sometimes sacrificed to deities.

Object facts

• Title: Pawing Bull
• Date: 500–475 BCE
• Culture: South Italy, Lucania, Greek
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: bronze
• Dimensions: Overall: 10.6 x 5 cm (4 3/16 x 1 15/16 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1930.336

A detail from the museum

This solid-cast bronze bull is nearly intact, missing only its tail.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• S. Wunderlich. "A Statuette of a Bull." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 18, no. 3 (1931): 52-54.
• Jantzen, Ulf. Bronzewerkstätten in Grossgriechenland und Sizilien. Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1937.
• Fraser, A.D. "The Bronze Bull in Cleveland," Humanistic Studies in Honor of John Calvin Metcalf, University of Virginia Studies, vol. 1 (Charlottesville, VA, 1941): 1-11.

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.