Beautiful young man of Marathon

The beautiful young man of Marathon is a statue in Bronze discovered in 1925 out of bay of Marathon, from where it draws its name. It is commonly attached to the Greek Sculpture of the second classicism, i.e. fourth century BC It is currently preserved at the archaeological National museum of Athens under the number of X  inventory; 15118.

Discovered

The statue was drawn from water in June 1925 in the nets of fishermen working out of bay of Marathon, without it being able to be attached to a particular shipwreck. An exploration carried out in 1976 by a Franco-British team did not make it possible to identify of wreck of vessel on the place of discovery. It is possible that the statue simply decorated the villa of Hérode Atticus which gave on bay.

Description

The statue represents a naked young man, upright, of size smaller than natural - it measures 1,3  measure. Its attitude is rather complex. It is pressed on the left leg; the foot of the free leg is in withdrawal, posed on the point, in accordance with the rules of the Contrapposto of Polyclète. The swinging of the hips however is accentuated more than at this last, and the drawing of the muscles - projection of the pectoral and low of the Abdomen - is marked less. The head, leaning towards the left, is girded of a stringcourse to which an ornament in the shape of sheet or horn is attached. The glance seems to move towards the left hand but fleet in fact in vagueness, beyond, as it is often the case for works of the second classicism. The stability of the unit is ensured by a casting of Plomb inside the left leg; the channel of casting is still visible in the big toe. The traces of wrenching on the plant of the foot and the first three toes also show that the balance carried only on the left. The point of the right foot, missing, was restored at the time modern.

The slightly folded right-hand man is raised above the head whereas the left arm is stuck along the chest, the folded up front armlever with right angle. An attentive examination of bronze shows that the right hand did not hold anything and that it was not supported, not more than the right front armlever. On the other hand, the left palm of the hand is slotted and the remaining Tenon preserves lead traces. The internal surface of the Major and the left front armlevers presents traces of flatness showing that the beautiful young man held an attribute of form punt and length of approximately 20  centimetres, since it arrived to the hollow of the elbow.

The work of bronze was particularly neat: the junction of the various sections is invisible, except for that of the arms. Those were brought back to different levels, which made think that they had both undergone ancient restorations, or at least the left arm. However, this fact in itself is not incompatible with the cast iron techniques employed at the time: the difference in height of the junction could be explained by the difference of position and weight of each arm. In the absence of a pushed technical analysis of bronze, it is not possible to conclude with certainty.

The eyes are formed of a white stone where the iris is illustrated by a disc of yellow Molten glass clearly; the Pupille is lost. They were inserted after the addition of the lashes along the eyelids. The point of the centres is a Incrustation of pure Cuivre.

Interpretation

The installation of the beautiful young man is not well included/understood. It is not without pointing out that of the athletes pourers of oil or the type of the Satyre pourer , but the position of the right hand prohibited to see a gesture of wine waiter there. It was also suggested that the beautiful young man held a Toupie or a Yo-yo, toys whose existence is well attested in ancient Greece, but the absence of marks of contact on the fingers contradicts these assumptions. The bringing together of the inch and the index could in makes mean that it opera hat of the fingers.

It is trying to see a bond between the epic of the left hand and that of the right hand: the beautiful young man could amuse a newborn related to the left arm, like it the Hermes makes carrying Dionysos child or a cock (gift pederastic traditional). If one makes of the beautiful young man a Hermes, it could carry a tortoise: the Homeric Hymne devoted to the god describes the joy of this last when he discovers the tortoise of which he will make the first Lyre. One knows with the remainder of the bronze statuettes of Roman epoch when the god holds a tortoise in the left palm of the hand and finger of the right hand indicates it.

The position of the left arm, tended flat, makes these rebuildings not very probable. However, the arm could be altered at one posterior time: the conservatives of the museum suggest that the beautiful young man was transformed into carry-lamp. If on the other hand the position of the arm is original, the beautiful young man could carry a plate of the left hand, of which he discovers the contents by raising a fabric of the right hand. This type of representation is found on funerary Lécythe S at white zone: if one adds the fact to it that Marathon sheltered a garrison of beautiful young man S, the statue could be a votive monument ephebic.

The frontal ornament carried by the beautiful young man is a apex - feather, flower or flower retained on the top of the face by a stringcourse. One finds this type of ornament on other sculptures as well as painted vases. In the shape of flower of lotus, it is with the ptolémaïque time an attribute of Hermes Parammôn . Interpreted rather like the stringcourse of the victorious athlete, the ribbon could mean that the statue decorated a Palestre. However, one finds also stringcourses in contexts not-sportsmen, for example on the funerary reliefs too young children to be athletes.

Attribution

The style of the beautiful young man returns incontestably to the second classicism. Its charm and its grace more precisely evoke the style of Praxitèle: by the swing of the hips, modelled muscles, the age of the model and the slope of the head, the statue resembles much the type of the Satyre pourer . The choice of material is not incompatible with an attribution praxitélienne: if the Athenian Master worked mainly the Marbre, the ancient sources specify that he also excelled in bronze.

Consequently, and in spite of the absence of any literary reference to the beautiful young man, the statue was allotted to the hand even of Praxitèle, or its workshop. One also proposed to see there the work of wire of Praxitèle, Céphisodote the Young person and Timarchos, which would at the same time make it possible to clearly give an account of the installation praxitélienne and the variations compared to the style of the Master: one could detect in work the influence of Lysippe; others stressed that the composition fits more in three dimensions that the works allotted to Praxitèle, in particular the Satyre pourer. Certain commentators estimate that bronze, though pleasant, is not level of a masterpiece: bronze would be located simply in the influence of Praxitèle.

Lastly, the dating of work like an original of the last quarter of the fourth century BC, which is the subject of a broad consensus, was also discussed. Bronze resembles indeed a statue of typical servant, as one found some in the houses of Pompéi, in particular because of the representation smaller than natural, the installation and the absence of attributes. Instead of being a Greek original transformed at the time Roman, the beautiful young man could thus be a work created at the time imperial in imitation of the style of the second classicism. The case would not be isolated: the bronze known as of the “beautiful young man of Tolède” was thus allotted to the school Polyclète before a thorough technical analysis shows a posterior dating with There still, a technical analysis of the bronze of the beautiful young man would be necessary to slice.