Centauromachy frieze from the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassai
- Title:
- Centauromachy frieze from the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassai
- Collection:
- Cornell Cast Collection
- Creator:
- Unknown (architect: Iktinos)
- Photographer:
- Alexandridis, Annetta
- Date:
- ca. 1890-1900
ca. 400 BCE
2008 (image)
- Site:
- Bassai, Greece (original)
- Location:
- Warehouse
Bassai, Greece (original) - ID Number:
- CCC_0088
- Accession Number:
- Sage no. 290
6 (carved in)
part of 290, Phigalia frieze, left half of slab Goldwin Smith Hall basement 521 BM (sticker front)
18 (left hand side, pen)
88 - File Name:
- CCC_0088.tif
- Original Measurements:
- 63 (H) x 128 (W) cm (complete block)
- Culture:
- Greek
- Style/Period:
- Classical
- Work Type:
- casts (sculpture)
- Materials/Techniques:
- plaster cast (sculpture)
marble sculpture in relief (original) - Subject:
- Temple of Apollo (Bassai)
Centauromachy (Greek mythology) - Image View Type:
- overall
- Image View Description:
- from front
- Measurement:
- 60-63 x 67 x 4.5 (centimeters, height x width x diameter)
- Description:
- This is a cast of the viewer's left side of a slab from the Ionic frieze of the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassai. The left side of the block is heavily damaged in the original. Here, a Centaur at the left faces left. Only his upper torso, neck, arms, and flowing animal skin are preserved. He is depicted in three-quarter view with his back facing the viewer, probably in the act of throwing. He holds up his left arm, around which a feline skin has been wrapped. His right arm is up and back. To the right, a Lapith woman shown between frontal and three quarter views clutches her drapery as she runs to the right. Her head is not preserved in this cast and only partially preserved in the original. Her right leg is also missing here, as in the original. Her left leg overlaps the Centaur to the right, who is contained in the same block of the original but cast separately (SSID 512936). Further fragments of this block were identified subsequent to the making of this cast: A fragment from the lower left corner of the block and the Lapith woman's right breast are held in Athens at the National Museum (nos. NM 4564 and NM 4993). Casts of those pieces have been restored to the original block in the British Museum. The west and north sections of the frieze were devoted to scenes of Centaurs battling Lapiths. This block has been located on the west side of the frieze. Casts of slabs from the interior frieze of the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassai are installed in the common spaces at the top (second floor) of the main stairwells in both the north and south wings of Goldwin Smith Hall.
- Notes:
- Items in the Cornell Cast Collection are meant for inventory and reference purposes. Metadata may not be complete in all cases.
no. 1815,1020.6 - Bibliography:
- W. B. Dinsmoor, "The Sculptured Frieze from Bassae," American Journal of Archaeology 60 (1956), 401-452
Hedwig Kenner, Der Fries des Tempels von Bassae-Phigalia (Vienna: F. Deuticke, 1946)
Ian Jenkins, Greek Architecture and its Sculpture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 130-150 - Related Work:
- The left and right sides of this block were cast separately. The right half of the block is SSID 512936.
- Repository:
- Cornell University (current)
London, British 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.