Athena Lemnia (Kassel)

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The so-called Athena Lemnia in the Antikensammlung in Kassel at Wilhelmshöhe Castle is a slightly larger than life torso statue from the 2nd century AD. This shows a clear relationship with two Dresden torsos, which were considered in the 19th century as replicas of the Athena Lemnia des Phidias .

description

The torso is considered to be a Roman copy of a Greek original. It was created around 160/170 AD from white, translucent , finely crystalline marble . It is 1.74 meters high, measured from the top of the plinth to the left upper arm, and is not particularly well preserved.

Athena is shown standing pondered ; she wears a peplos with a flap , a slanting belt and sandals. The shoulder joint of the left upper arm, which was raised horizontally to the side, is still preserved, the right and shoulder joint is missing, as is the head, neck and the base of the bust. The preserved parts also have many defects, are badly bumped and damaged by breaks. On the right side, the side of the supporting leg, the peplos folds are tight, highly plastic and columnar. The edge of the rollover has its own fold structure and ends largely undercut with free plastic. The posture of the free leg is indicated by arched pleats, the hem of the garment hanging down low has stowage and kinked folds above the feet. The Aegis shows scales arranged like roof tiles. It is tied with a Heracles knot on the right shoulder of the goddess and lies diagonally across the chest and back. The upper edge is shown smooth and close to the body, while the lower edge is wavy in some places. There you can see the underside of the fur with its rough structure. The lower edge of the Aegis, which has flat arches, is adorned with short snakes, the heads of which are partly sculpted. The figure of the god wears a snake belt around the waist, which is also closed with a Heracles knot. The Gorgoneion is on the left side of the body.

From the ponderation of the body it was concluded that the Athena figure once held a lance supported on the ground with her left hand and her helmet with her right, which she was looking at with her head turned to the right and slightly inclined. With this in mind, Adolf Furtwängler supplemented the two dimensionally identical Dresden torsos that were available to him in the 19th century.

Relationship with the Dresden torsos

Since Furtwängler's attempt in the years 1891 to 1893 to reconstruct the original shape of this type of statue from Dresden and Bolognese fragments as well as his own additions, it has often been viewed as a replica of the famous bronze Athena Lemnia des Phidias on the Athens Acropolis . Although Furtwängler's attempt at reconstruction was questioned early on and other theories about the appearance or type of the original Athena Lemnia or the parts of the statue fragments to be supplemented were developed in the 20th and 21st centuries, the term “Athena Lemnia “For the statues of the Dresden and Kassel type still frequently in the literature.

The Kassel torso has the same dimensions as the two Dresden torsos that Furtwängler used for his attempt at reconstruction, but differs from them in details. In 1991 a detailed comparison was carried out using new plaster casts, which led to a revision of the judgments about the Kassel statue, which had been rather derogatory up to that point. Despite the poor condition of the Kassel torso, it was recognized that the Dresden specimens show a simplification and schematic representation of the details of the garment and the details of the Gorgoneion compared to the Kassel torso. In each of the Dresden statues, the peplos is not floor-length, the lower hem has been straightened in both, which means that fold motifs have been treated inconsistently and tips have been cut off. On the back of the torso Hm 50 it is also in Bosse , on the copy with the inventory number Hm 49 it is wedge-shaped. The modeling and differentiation of the common motif elements are of higher quality in the Kassel Athene than in the two Dresden copies. Whether this is due to a better Antonine copyist's studio or whether this statue could be created more closely to the original cannot be determined. The earlier thesis that the special features of the Kassel copy were due to a complete reworking and additions by the copyist is now rejected.

Interpretation as Athena Ergane and as a copy of Athena Lemnia

Although considerable doubts have been raised about Furtwängler's attempts at reconstruction, Gercke assumes that the Kassel Athena is an image of the lost statue of Phidias and that she once held a Corinthian helmet in her right hand.

It is an Athena Ergane , the original of which, the Phidias statue, “was in harmony with the sculptural and motif innovations of Parthenon art, in costume and garment style with figures from the east gable and the west frieze” , but not linked to older stylistic tendencies have. Athena held her helmet in her hand, which was only used for representation, and was portrayed as the protector of work and craft. This also fits in with her close connection with Hephaestus , the blacksmith god . As a child, he was once thrown into the sea near Lemnos - which, according to Gercke, explains the relationship to this island better than a clerical consecration - and was venerated at a place of worship at the Athens agora .

history

The provenance of the Kassel work of art is not entirely clear. It came into the Kassel Antikensammlung in 1777 through purchase in Rome . Landgrave Friedrich II acquired the statue from Thomas Jenkins or the Count Johann Ludwig von Wallmoden-Gimborn . The surface of the statue was probably cleaned before this change of ownership, and cuts and processing were made to add a head. A restoration took place in 1912/13. After the statue was damaged in World War II , it was restored in 1965. The surface was chemically cleaned, iron arm dowels were removed and brass dowels and stone putty were used to attach additions. Another restoration took place in 1974/75. At that time, the individual parts were separated from each other, cleaned and reassembled. The holes and fractures were closed with plaster and the statue was attached to the base with a standing dowel. The Kassel torso bears the inventory number Sk 2 in the antique collection.

literature

Web links

  • Peter Gercke, Athena ›Lemnia‹ Typ Dresden-Kassel on antikeskulptur.museum-kassel.de (the text is identical to Gercke / Zimmermann-Elseify 2007, pp. 51–55)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. B. John Boardman (ed.), Reclams Geschichte der antiken Kunst , Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-15-010432-7 , p. 110. Boardman gives here researcher opinions, according to which the torsos of the Dresden and Kassel type do not correspond to the Athena Lemnia of Phidias, but to other models.
  2. ↑ Peter Gercke, Athena ›Lemnia‹ type Dresden-Kassel on antikeskulptur.museum-kassel.de