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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1955.124
Title
Head of Athena Wearing Helmet with Griffin Protome
Classification
Sculpture
Work Type
head, sculpture
Date
4th century BCE
Places
Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World, Europe
Period
Classical period to Hellenistic
Culture
Etruscan
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/312177

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Bronze
Technique
Cast, lost-wax process
Dimensions
5.5 x 3.4 x 3.6 cm (2 3/16 x 1 5/16 x 1 7/16 in.)
Technical Details

Chemical Composition: ICP-MS/AAA data from sample, Bronze:
Cu, 87.76; Sn, 10.53; Pb, 1.48; Zn, 0.005; Fe, 0.02; Ni, 0.01; Ag, 0.08; Sb, 0.11; As, less than 0.10; Bi, less than 0.025; Co, less than 0.01; Au, less than 0.01; Cd, less than 0.001
J. Riederer

Technical Observations: The patina is green and black. The object is substantially mineralized, and anything that may have existed below the neck has been broken off and lost.

The head is a hollow cast, probably using an indirect lost-wax technique. Modern fill material prevents inspection of the interior. The wall thickness at the break edge of the neck is 2 to 2.5 mm. The break is a brittle fracture and shows no evidence of a join at this location. The surface is too corroded to estimate the degree of detail enhanced by cold working, but most of the decoration was probably cast and refined in the wax. The irises of the eyes appear to have been made with a round punch in the metal. There is no evidence that they were inlaid.


Henry Lie (submitted 2001)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Aimée and Rosamond Lamb, Milton, MA (by 1955), gift; to the Fogg Art Museum, 1955.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of the Misses Aimée and Rosamond Lamb
Accession Year
1955
Object Number
1955.124
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
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Descriptions

Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This helmeted head of Athena was broken from a larger object, perhaps a bust weight or an applique. Her face is clearly modeled, looking forward, a prominent nose, small mouth, and small indented points for pupils in modeled upper and lower lids. Her curly hair frames her face and covers her ears. She wears a type of Thracian helmet with a bird-shaped crest or protome (1). The peaked visor of the helmet perches like a diadem above her hair. Small decorative volutes appear on either side of the helmet. The neckguard is intact. This type of helmet is known from the Hellenistic world, and an example made of iron was found in the fourth century BCE tomb of a Hellenistic ruler at Vergina, often attributed to Phillip II. There is a modern metal rod attached to the interior of the head.

If this piece was originally part of an applique, it could have decorated many different types of objects (2).

NOTES:

1. For a very close parallel, see Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae Menerva no. 45, now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Ancona, dated to the mid-fourth century BCE and ascribed to a votive statuette of Etruscan manufacture. Other images of the goddess with a similar helmet include LIMC Athena no. 146, a bronze statuette, and LIMC Athena no. 381, a black-figure vessel. See also H. B. Walters, Catalogue of the Bronzes in the British Museum: Greek, Roman and Etruscan (London, 1899) 63, no. 454, inv. no. 1772,0302.231, for a bronze statuette of a male warrior wearing a helmet with a crest in the shape of a bird’s head and neck.

2. Compare, for instance, the applique bust of Athena on a table support in L. Pirzio Biroli Stefanelli, ed., Il bronzo dei Romani: Arredo e suppellettile (Rome, 1990) 158-59 and 261, no. 25, figs. 113-14. There is a head of Attis, of a similar scale and wearing a Phygian cap similar to this helmet, in the Netherlands; see A. N. Zadoks-Josephus Jitta, W. J. T. Peters, and W. A. van Es, Roman Bronze Statuettes from the Netherlands 2: Statuettes Found South of the Limes (Groningen, 1969) 12-13, no. 5. The Dutch piece is thought to have been an applique; it and the Harvard piece are likely to have had the same original use.


Lisa M. Anderson

Subjects and Contexts

  • Ancient Bronzes

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu