Figure U (Old Lapith woman), West pediment, Temple of Zeus, Olympia, miniature
- Title:
- Figure U (Old Lapith woman), West pediment, Temple of Zeus, Olympia, miniature
- Collection:
- Cornell Cast Collection
- Creator:
- Gipsformerei (German repository, Berlin, contemporary) (reproduction)
Unknown (Pausanias attributes the West pediment to Alkamenes, possibly erroneously) (original)
- Photographer:
- Mihaloew, Andreya
- Date:
- ca. 1890-1900
470-456 BCE
2016 (image)
- Site:
- Berlin, Germany (reproduction)
Olympia, Greece (original) - Location:
- Goldwin Smith Hall, former Temple of Zeus space, Cornell University
previously, Warehouse
Berlin, Germany (reproduction)
Olympia, Greece (original) - ID Number:
- CCC_0857
- Accession Number:
- Sage no. 132
"S 1833." (the S here is upper case and in an archaic German cursive script ) incised lightly and inked in red on underside of base
786 - File Name:
- CCC_0857.tif
- Culture:
- Greek
- Style/Period:
- Classical
- Work Type:
- casts (sculpture)
- Materials/Techniques:
- plaster cast (sculpture)
marble sculpture in the round (original) - Subject:
- Apollo (Greek deity)
Centauromachy (Greek mythology)
Ancient Olympia (Greece) - Image View Type:
- overall
- Image View Description:
- from front
- Measurement:
- 9 x 25.5 x 5 (centimeters, height x width x height)
- Description:
- This is a restored, miniature, cast reproduction of figure U from the West pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, identified as an old Lapith woman. Figure U is one of four Lapith female angle figures who lie on their fronts watching their compatriots battle Centaurs. She is positioned on a wedge, the second figure from the end. Figure U, depicted in profile facing the viewer's left, is fully draped in a belted garment with overfold. Her hair is short and curly. She supports herself on her forearms and looks on with a worried expression. This cast is in good condition. The original is substantially damaged. In the original, figure U is carved from Pentelic marble rather than the Parian of the fifth century pedimental sculptures. She and figure B were added, perhaps in the first century BCE, to replace earlier, damaged versions of the same figures, or they were created from scratch to fill in what might have been conceived by Hellenistic or later viewers as a sparsely populated pedimental composition. The subject of the West pediment of the Temple of Zeus is a scene of battle between Lapiths and Centaurs at the wedding of Perithoos--king of the Lapiths and friend of Theseus--and Deidameia. Apollo watches over the chaotic scene, directing the action. This object was part of a complete set of restored miniature figures from the West pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia held in Cornell's cast collection. The West and East pediment miniature sets were sculpted by Richard Grüttner and produced by the Gipsformerei in Berlin, as the number (1833) under the figure's base indicates. After an earthquake in the sixth c. CE toppled the temple, its broken elements were gradually covered and protected under several meters of alluvial deposits from the Alpheios and Kladeos rivers. Many figures and fragments from the Olympia pediments were uncovered by German excavators in the final quarter of the 19th c. Excavations at the site are ongoing. Pausanias' description of the temple pediments (5.10.2-10) sheds great light on the subjects of the pediments and both clarifies and confuses the placement of the figures in relation to each other. Various arrangements of figures have been proposed and scholarly debate on the topic continues.
- Notes:
- Items in the Cornell Cast Collection are meant for inventory and reference purposes. Metadata may not be complete in all cases.
- Bibliography:
- Bernard Ashmole and Nicholas Yalouris, Olympia: The Sculptures of the Temple of Zeus (London: Phaidon, 1967)
Hans-Volkmar Herrmann, ed., Die Olympia-Skulpturen. Wege der Forschung, Band 577 (Darmstadt, 1987)
Andrew Stewart, Greek Sculpture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 142-146, 253-254, figs. 262-276
John Boardman, Greek Sculpture: The Classical Period (London: Thames and Hudson, 1985), 33-50, figs. 18-23.6
Gipsformerei, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Katalog der Originalabgüsse, Heft 4, Griechenland und Rom: Freiplastik, no. 1833 - Repository:
- Cornell University (current)
Olympia, Archaeological Museum (original) - Collecting Program:
- Cornell Collections of Antiquities
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- The images in the Cornell Collection of Antiquities: Casts are protected by copyright, and the copyright holders are their creators, generally Cornell University Library, Annetta Alexandridis, and Verity Platt. This collection of plaster casts owned by Cornell University was photographed by Cornell University Library, Alexandridis, Platt, and Andreya L. Mihaloew from 2010-2015, with funding from a Digital Collections in Arts and Sciences Grant to Annetta Alexandridis. Cornell is providing access to the materials for research and personal use. The written permission of any copyright and other rights holders is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use that extends beyond what is authorized by fair use and other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item. Please contact Annetta Alexandridis and Verity Platt for more information about this collection, or to request permission to use these images.