Bronze Statue of Alexander for sale?

Believe it or nor, a beautiful bronze statue of Alexander the Great has been offered for sale. An original work from the 4th century BC, 65 cm high, exactly the size that would fit in any of our living rooms, wouldn’t it? All it takes is finding the asking price of seven million euro. Who wouldn’t be interested?

[photo Associated Press]

Well, in this case the Thessaloniki police was interested first as it arrested two men near the town of Kavala who were trying to sell this statue for about a year. Among other artifacts police also found two bronze heads of a boy and a young man for which the suspects asked between 4 and 6 million euro. In comparison, Alexander was a cheap give-away.

According to the information gathered by Costas Kantouris, writer for Associated Press, the Alexander statue appears to come from the workshop of Lysippos, nobody less than Alexander’s dedicated sculptor. Further tests at the Thessaloniki Archaeological Museum will confirm if this is an original or a contemporary copy, as Lysippos’ workshop must have produced many copies of the master’s work. As far as the boy’s head is concerned, they suggest that it was part of a larger Roman sculpture dating back to the 1st century BC.

Unfortunately there is little or no information about the origin of the artifacts, although Turkey seems to be a plausible source.

Useless to add that I am totally flabbergasted. There are not too many statues of Alexander the Great around, we mainly have heads and even those are pretty much damaged one way or another. The bronze statues of Alexander I know of, are small ones and are not too convincing about their likeness, except the one at the British Museum (see my heading) of course, but look at this one! Any Alexander-fan will recognize the great man at first glance! Wow!