DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42779#0226
BRONZEWORK 161
the Artemisium Zeus no figure of full scale in that attitude
was known. This Athena at least follows in the tradition
founded by Endoios. Her attitude, with one hand out-
stretched holding a helmet, at least precludes the possibility
of her being a stone statue, for such a gesture would be
impossible in stone. The serpents of the aegis also are of a
type only to be rendered in bronze. A possible interpretation
as AthenaErgane is improbable, for, if she were so identified,
it would have been certain that she would have been taking
some part in the artistic activities, on the lines of the Athena
moulding the horse on the Berlin vase.
To her right is apparently the master of the bronze-
workers, with his Hephaestean cap hung on the wall behind
him, together with his tools.
What we know for certain, even if questions of patina and
structure and casting are not settled beyond dispute, is that
the surface of a bronze statue or of its parts was never left in
the condition in which it came from the foundry. The whole
surface, as we have seen, was filed, scraped, smoothed and
prepared for subsequent treatment with graving tools by the
master himself, or under his direct supervision. The hair
was in almost every case carefully worked over with various
engraving tools; the eyes were nearly always added after
casting, either in the form of inserted stone or glass, or as
enamel. The lips and the eyebrows were sometimes given a
covering of silver or other metal. The nipples were often
fashioned of copper and attached separately. Embroidery to
drapery was sometimes added in silver insertion. Eyelashes
were on occasions made as small separate plates1 and in-
serted along the eyelids between the stone iris and the
lid. They can be seen in place, undamaged, in the fine
bronze head of a Cyrenean in the British Museum, a
Hellenistic work.
But there were no general rules about these adornments.
Only in the method of covering defects did Greek bronze-
1 Richter, Sculpture and Sculptors, p. 147, fig. 454.
the Artemisium Zeus no figure of full scale in that attitude
was known. This Athena at least follows in the tradition
founded by Endoios. Her attitude, with one hand out-
stretched holding a helmet, at least precludes the possibility
of her being a stone statue, for such a gesture would be
impossible in stone. The serpents of the aegis also are of a
type only to be rendered in bronze. A possible interpretation
as AthenaErgane is improbable, for, if she were so identified,
it would have been certain that she would have been taking
some part in the artistic activities, on the lines of the Athena
moulding the horse on the Berlin vase.
To her right is apparently the master of the bronze-
workers, with his Hephaestean cap hung on the wall behind
him, together with his tools.
What we know for certain, even if questions of patina and
structure and casting are not settled beyond dispute, is that
the surface of a bronze statue or of its parts was never left in
the condition in which it came from the foundry. The whole
surface, as we have seen, was filed, scraped, smoothed and
prepared for subsequent treatment with graving tools by the
master himself, or under his direct supervision. The hair
was in almost every case carefully worked over with various
engraving tools; the eyes were nearly always added after
casting, either in the form of inserted stone or glass, or as
enamel. The lips and the eyebrows were sometimes given a
covering of silver or other metal. The nipples were often
fashioned of copper and attached separately. Embroidery to
drapery was sometimes added in silver insertion. Eyelashes
were on occasions made as small separate plates1 and in-
serted along the eyelids between the stone iris and the
lid. They can be seen in place, undamaged, in the fine
bronze head of a Cyrenean in the British Museum, a
Hellenistic work.
But there were no general rules about these adornments.
Only in the method of covering defects did Greek bronze-
1 Richter, Sculpture and Sculptors, p. 147, fig. 454.