DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14144#0225
the lemnian athene.
simplicity and motionless quietude of the original, of which we get
a correct impression from the Lenormant statuette, is, of course,
somewhat modified in the Parisian statue. In the latter, the right leg
of the Goddess protrudes from the upper garment, and an under-
garment of different material is seen ; and she wears a chlamys on
the left shoulder. But the prevailing tone is one of simple grandeur,
and suggests the idea that we have before us a copy of the Parthenos
modified to suit the taste of a later period.1 If, as is generally sup-
posed, it is of Carrara marble, it is probably a Roman work, executed
as a temple-image in the best period of Roman imitation.- The other
most remarkable representations of the Virgin Goddess are the
Athene Vcllctri in the Louvre, a Roman copy of a Greek original
of the Pheidian age, of which the head is especially admirable, as
the most perfect ideal of the Athene type ; and the Pallas Giustiniani
in the Vatican, also called the Minerva jMedica, from a mistaken inter-
pretation of the snake. This statue is evidently copied from a bronze
original. With these may be compared the very fine statue of Pallas
in the Museo Torlonia in the Lungara at Rome.
THE LEMNIAN ATHENE,
of Pheidias, in bronze, was so called from the Attic colonists in
Lemnos, who offered this statue on the Acropolis of their mother
city, Athens. It appears to have been of an entirely different type
from the Parthenos and other representations of the Goddess by
the same hand ; its chief characteristic being its exceeding beauty.
Pliny3 tells us that it was so beautiful that it received ' the sur-
name of beauty itself {tarn cximiec pulchritudinis ut forma: cognomen
(icccpcrit), and Lucian 4 says that ' the outline of the face, the tender
loveliness of the checks and the symmetry of the nose,' would fur-
nish a model for the delineation of the perfect beauty of Pantheia
the Smyrna.'an, mistress of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. It is in
1 Vide Anna!. deW Instil, xh. and Mat.
<i. 7tis/. iii. 13, of the year 1840.
2 This torso is so grand thai Hottichcr
[XSnigl, Bfuteen, p. 374) supposes it to l>e
the centra! figure of the E. pediment of the
J'cuthenon ; and he declares that it is of Pen.
telican marble.
» Plin. jV. 11. xxxiv. 54. ' Imag. 4.
simplicity and motionless quietude of the original, of which we get
a correct impression from the Lenormant statuette, is, of course,
somewhat modified in the Parisian statue. In the latter, the right leg
of the Goddess protrudes from the upper garment, and an under-
garment of different material is seen ; and she wears a chlamys on
the left shoulder. But the prevailing tone is one of simple grandeur,
and suggests the idea that we have before us a copy of the Parthenos
modified to suit the taste of a later period.1 If, as is generally sup-
posed, it is of Carrara marble, it is probably a Roman work, executed
as a temple-image in the best period of Roman imitation.- The other
most remarkable representations of the Virgin Goddess are the
Athene Vcllctri in the Louvre, a Roman copy of a Greek original
of the Pheidian age, of which the head is especially admirable, as
the most perfect ideal of the Athene type ; and the Pallas Giustiniani
in the Vatican, also called the Minerva jMedica, from a mistaken inter-
pretation of the snake. This statue is evidently copied from a bronze
original. With these may be compared the very fine statue of Pallas
in the Museo Torlonia in the Lungara at Rome.
THE LEMNIAN ATHENE,
of Pheidias, in bronze, was so called from the Attic colonists in
Lemnos, who offered this statue on the Acropolis of their mother
city, Athens. It appears to have been of an entirely different type
from the Parthenos and other representations of the Goddess by
the same hand ; its chief characteristic being its exceeding beauty.
Pliny3 tells us that it was so beautiful that it received ' the sur-
name of beauty itself {tarn cximiec pulchritudinis ut forma: cognomen
(icccpcrit), and Lucian 4 says that ' the outline of the face, the tender
loveliness of the checks and the symmetry of the nose,' would fur-
nish a model for the delineation of the perfect beauty of Pantheia
the Smyrna.'an, mistress of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. It is in
1 Vide Anna!. deW Instil, xh. and Mat.
<i. 7tis/. iii. 13, of the year 1840.
2 This torso is so grand thai Hottichcr
[XSnigl, Bfuteen, p. 374) supposes it to l>e
the centra! figure of the E. pediment of the
J'cuthenon ; and he declares that it is of Pen.
telican marble.
» Plin. jV. 11. xxxiv. 54. ' Imag. 4.