Strangford Apollo

The Strangford Apollo is an ancient Greek sculpture of a nude boy, with the arms and lower legs missing. It dates to around 490 BC, making it one of the latest examples of the kouros type of statue, and is made of Parian marble. Its provenance is uncertain: it is generally believed to have been made on the island of Aegina and discovered on Anafi. It may originally have been a cult statue, or possibly a temple dedication.

The sculpture has been in British Museum's collection since 1864, when Charles Thomas Newton purchased it for the Museum from the collection of Percy Smythe, 8th Viscount Strangford, who had acquired it in the 1820s during the Greek War of Independence. It was used as a model for the face of the "Colossus of Leone", a colossal statue built as a prop for Sergio Leone's 1961 film '' The Colossus of Rhodes.''

Ancient history

The Strangford Apollo was made from Parian marble around 490 BCE, and stands tall. It depicts a nude standing youth in the style. The lower parts of the legs and arms are missing. It is generally believed to have been found on the island of Anafi, though has also been suggested as having been discovered on Lemnos: one or both of these attributions were made by Charles Thomas Newton, the Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum, though the evidence on which he based his judgement is now lost.

The statue is generally considered to have originated from the island of Aegina, partly due to similarities between it and figures depicted on the pediments of the island's Temple of Aphaia: this hypothesis was first suggested by Heinrich Brunn and has generally been accepted since, though in the twentieth century Ernst Buschor has suggested that it may have been made in Boeotia, and Ernst Langlotz that it was made on a Greek island. It may have been the cult statue of the island's temple of Apollo Aigletes, or alternatively been offered as a dedication at the temple: equally, the statue may predate the construction of the temple.

The Strangford Apollo is one of the latest known examples of the type, which originated in the seventh century BCE, during the Archaic period of Greek art. Jerome Pollitt has written that it shows "the outward humanisation which characterised much late Archaic sculpture", and that it follows a more naturalistic canon of proportions than most earlier .

Modern history

The statue is believed to have been acquired by Percy Smythe, 8th Viscount Strangford, a British ambassador to the Sublime Porte in Constantinople between 1820 and 1825, in the 1820s, early in the Greek War of Independence. It was purchased by the British Museum in 1864, from a collection which had been made by Strangford before his death in 1855. Newton discovered the statue in Strangford's cellar, and purchased it for the museum.

The sculptor Ramiro Gómez used the face of the Strangford Apollo for that of the "Colossus of Leone", a colossal statue built as a prop for Sergio Leone's 1961 film '' The Colossus of Rhodes,'' after Leone's wish to give the statue the face of Benito Mussolini was rejected.

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{{British Museum

Ancient Greek and Roman sculptures in the British Museum
5th-century BC Greek sculptures
Marble sculptures in the United Kingdom
Greek artifacts outside Greece
Sculptures of Apollo
Cult images
Archaeological discoveries in the Aegean Islands
Kouroi