Torso of a Youth (c. 150–100 BCE): Art, History and Details

Torso of a Youth (c. 150–100 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The exceptional workmanship suggests that this sculpture was carved by a Greek sculptor. Its incomplete state of preservation makes precise identification difficult, but it was most likely an Apollo or Dionysos, modeled in the soft, somewhat effeminate style of Praxiteles. The museum’s Apollo Sauroktonos is a useful parallel. The two drill holes in the upper chest are ancient and were possibly used to support separate long tresses of hair. The sculpture may well be a copy of a fourth-century original.

Object facts

• Title: Torso of a Youth
• Date: c. 150–100 BCE
• Culture: Greece
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: marble
• Dimensions: Overall: 103 cm (40 9/16 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1965.23

A detail from the museum

It was common practice in the 1700s and 1800s to attach new heads or limbs to fragmented ancient statues like this one.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.

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.