Alexander riding his beloved Bucephalus is endlessly reproduced in stone, marble or bronze, so
it is not surprising to see another one surfacing.
[Picture from glypto.wordpress.com]
This time
we are going to Athens with an
equestrian statue created back in 1992 by Yiannis Pappas, who through the Greek
Ministry of Culture donated his work to the Municipality of Athens .
Since then the statue has not moved and is still standing in the artist’s yard.
Red tape or
not, it finally occurred to the people in charge that this is a case of neglect
and hopes run high that Alexander may
make it to downtown Athens although it doesn’t seem too clear where this will be.
Unfortunately Yiannis Pappas died a few years ago, aged 92, without seeing his
beloved bronze on the spot it deserves.
Where is
the ideal and an honorable place for Alexander
in modern Athens ,
a city he loved so much?
I am wondering where the sculpture that is at the top your blog comes from. It is very striking but it looks more modern (renaissance maybe) than Macedonian. Is that right? or is it an ancient statue?
ReplyDeleteThe statue is definitely Hellenistic from about 250-100BC although its origin is uncertain. It is part of the collection at the British Museum, who labels it as a “Bronze statuette of a huntsman, perhaps Alexander the Great”. It may be a small copy of a larger group from Delphi, dedicated by Craterus to Alexander. In that case it could be from the hand of Lysippos and Leochares, Alexander’s own sculptors. Personally, I like to believe this is Alexander himself, hence its prominent place on my blog.
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