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Plaster cast of the Kritios Boy

20 November 2023

After an original statue by sculptor Kritios, Athens Acropolis Museum (Inv. 689), ca 478 BCE
Purchased, 1996
H 130.04cm, W 23.5cm
JLMC CC15

 

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The cult worship of heroes included shrines in their honour and the dedication of statues in their likeness. This plaster cast reproduces a marble statue, known as ‘The Kritios Boy’, excavated from the Athenian Acropolis in 1866.

It may have been a representation of the Greek hero Theseus or – less likely, given the elaborate coiffure – a dedication in honour of a young victor in an Athenian sports competition. The sculpture was one of the first known to depict the contrapposto pose, and it marks a breakthrough in realistic rendering of the human body.

The cult of Theseus achieved dominance in early fifth-century BCE Athens, when he was turned into a hero of Athenian democracy following what was claimed to be the recovery of his bones from a grave; he briefly overtook Heracles as the most popular hero in Athenian art at the time. In mythology, Theseus had been credited with ridding the countryside of bandits and monsters.


Plaster cast of the Kritios Boy
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