LYSIPPOS AS A WORKER IN MARBLE, AND STATUE “DOUBLES.”
To regard a marble statue as an original work of Lysippos, who has been looked upon almost universally as a sculptor in bronze exclusively, seems at first sight to be baseless. Pliny certainly classed Lysippos among the bronze-workers, for in the preface to his account of bronze-founders[2106] he tells us that this artist produced 1,500 statues, and doubtless we are to infer that the historian regarded them all as being made of metal. He further[2107] speaks of Lysippos’ contributions to the (ars) statuaria, and it seems clear that this term, as the modern title of Book XXXIV, is to be taken in its narrow sense of sculpture in bronze as opposed to sculptura,[2108] that in marble. How firmly the belief is established that Lysippos worked only in bronze can be seen from the following words of Overbeck: “Zu beginnen ist mit wiederholter Hervorhebung der durchaus unzweifelhaften und wichtigen Tatsache dass Lysippos ausschliesslich Erzgiesser war.”[2109] That Lysippos was preëminently a bronze-worker, and that his ancient reputation was due chiefly to his bronze work, can not be doubted. But to say that he never essayed to produce works in marble, as so many other Greek artists did who were famed as bronze-workers,[2110] is, as one writer has lately expressed it, a kindisches Vorurtheil.[2111] That marble work was done in his studio, if not by his hand, is well attested by the reliefs from the base of the victor statue of Polydamas mentioned above, which have been generally referred to Lysippos’ pupils.[2112] These are too damaged to be used as exact evidence of his style, but the legs of Polydamas himself, in the central relief, so far as their contour can be made out, are thin and sinewy, as we should expect in Lysippan work, and this relief doubtless would have been regarded as the work of the master himself, if it had not been taken for granted that he worked only in bronze. But for the same assumption some critics would have seen an original from the hand of Lysippos in the statue of Agias at least, if not in the others of the Delphian group.[2113] It will be interesting to rehearse some of the arguments by which the statue of Agias has been adjudged a copy.[2114]
It has been generally assumed that the original group of statues at Pharsalos was of bronze (though we have no proof that it may not have been of marble), while the one at Delphi was copied almost, if not quite, simultaneously in marble[2115]—so faithfully, indeed, that even the proper marble support to the figure of Agias was omitted. While Homolle notes the absence of this support as evidence of the marble statue being an exact copy of the original bronze, Gardner argues that this proves a free imitation, where the support was not needed.[2116] The inexact modeling of the hair, since hair can not be rendered so perfectly in marble as in bronze, has been adduced as a sign that the marble statue was a copy of the bronze original. This in itself is a weak argument, since the slight and sketchy treatment of the hair of the Hermes of Praxiteles—which is, for the most part, merely blocked out[2117]—might with just as good reason be used as evidence that that statue is only a copy, especially as we know that Praxiteles also worked in bronze.[2118] The omission of the artist’s signature on the base of the Agias has also been taken to indicate that some pupil of Lysippos (Lysistratos, for example) did the work of transference in the master’s studio under his supervision and doubtless from his model.
Despite all such arguments, which prove little, it must be admitted that the careless finish of the Delphian statue is not what we should expect in a masterpiece by so renowned a sculptor as Lysippos, as the statue can not be said to be a first-rate work of art. But that it was made under the direct supervision of Lysippos can hardly be questioned. It seems reasonable to believe that Daochos, who employed the great artist in the one case, would not have trusted a mere copyist in the other, or one who was free to indulge his individual taste in details,[2119] especially as the statue was to be placed in so prominent a place as Delphi. He probably gave the orders for the two statues at the same time, and Lysippos must have had the oversight of the Delphian one. So it seems best to regard the statue of Agias as a “double,” and not as a copy in the later sense of the word. The custom of making such doubles goes back at least to the middle of the sixth century B. C. Thus the statue of the Delian Apollo by Angelion and Tektaios, known as the “Healer” (Οὔλιος),[2120] had a “double” in both Delphi[2121] and Athens.[2122] Similarly the Philesian Apollo of Branchidai near Miletos, by the elder Kanachos,[2123] had a double in Thebes known as the Ismenian Apollo, which Pausanias says differed from the one in Miletos neither in form nor size, but only in material, for it was of cedar-wood,[2124] while the Milesian one was of bronze. Furtwaengler[2125] has demonstrated that contemporary doubles of works by Polykleitos, Pheidias, and Praxiteles existed. The case of the statues of the athlete Agias at Pharsalos and at Delphi is paralleled by that of the Olympic victor Promachos, who had statues, probably alike, both at Olympia and in his native city Pellene.[2126] A double of the base of the Nike of Paionios at Olympia was discovered at Delphi,[2127] and a fine head in the collection of Miss Hertz in Rome is from the same original.[2128] A Polykleitan head in the British Museum, similar to that of the Westmacott Athlete (Pl. [19]), seems to be a contemporary replica of an original of the fifth century B. C.[2129] Such examples (and many more could be cited) show the difference between contemporary “doubles” and the later copies of Greek masterpieces. The former are Greek originals in a very true sense, made, as we assume the Agias was, under the direct supervision of noted sculptors. In this sense only the Delphian statue should be called a copy.