Rampin rider

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Rampin rider in the Acropolis Museum, head added
Head rampin in the Louvre, Paris

The rider Rampin is an archaic equestrian statue made of island marble from the Athens Acropolis, preserved in fragments . The eponymous head Rampin was found on the Acropolis in 1877 and acquired for his collection by the French embassy secretary in Athens, Georges Rampin. In 1896 he bequeathed the 27 centimeter high head to the Louvre in Paris , where it is exhibited under inventory number 3104. In 1886, during the investigation of the Persian rubble on the Acropolis west of the Erechtheion, the incomplete torso, broken into several fragments, including the beginning of the horse's body was found, which is under inventory number 590 in the Acropolis Museum. Its height is 81.5 centimeters. In 1935, Humfry Payne recognized the connection between the two finds, which he checked with the help of a plaster cast of the head in Athens. He published the result in 1936. The rider Rampin was around 550 BC. Created by an unknown but outstanding artist, who today bears the emergency name Rampin-Meister . The client and the reason for the installation are unknown.

description

The rider, bent slightly forward, holds the reins of the horse with his hands on his thighs. The right hand is clenched into a fist. Except for the beginning of the right upper arm, the arms are missing, as is the left shoulder. The legs are only preserved up to about the middle of the thighs. The pectoral muscles are gently curved below the broad shoulders. An oval rib arch, which extends to the groin, encloses the flat, deepened packets of the abdominal muscles divided in the middle above the navel. The rider is naked, the genitals are between the thighs. The back, which is barely articulated, has only broad U-shaped notches to indicate the shoulder blades and a hollow in the area of ​​the spinal column.

The Parisian head Rampin fits the torso seamlessly. He is leaning forward and turned slightly to the left. The slightly protruding, almond-shaped eyes are set off from the smooth forehead by the narrow ridges of the eyebrows. The iris and pupils were painted on, the remains of red and black paint are still there. The nose is bumped, especially the right half of the nose is missing, which also applies to the cheekbones on the right side. The mouth shows the smile typical of the art of archaic times , but has formulaic elements with the triangular lower lip. From the corners of the mouth, the skin stretches tightly over the cheeks. The design of the hair ornament stands in clear contrast to the flat and large shapes of the face.

The rider wears a cleanly shaved beard, which is cut out in the area below the lower lip and is made up of strings of pearl lying evenly next to each other. The beard was painted red like the area around the mouth, the mustache was probably painted on. The head hair, laid on top of the skullcap like a wig, is parted and falls in pearl cords behind the ears without reaching the shoulders. The strands of pearl hanging in the forehead end in small, volute-like rosettes, the curls of which are directed antithetically towards the center of the forehead. Two lower sidelocks each mediate the transition to the cheekbones. With regard to the elaborate hair design and its qualitative implementation, the head Rampin stands there isolated and reveals itself as the work of an outstanding artist.

A wreath of leaves surrounds the hair above the forehead curls. There is a drill hole with remnants of a lead pouring on the dome. A meniscus, a protection against birds, or an attribute made of metal may have been attached here.

The horse's neck, a piece of mane hair and the front part of the mouth and nostrils are preserved in separate and non-matching pieces. If all fragments are to be assigned to the horse of the rider, the horse's head would have been turned to the right with its mouth slightly open and its nostrils expanded.

Dating

The statue is stylistically close to the somewhat older calf-bearer from the Acropolis and can be combined with a group of other works, some of which are attributed to the Rampin master or come from his environment. They all have typical Attic design features, such as the contrasting of smooth surfaces with fine, chiseled areas. They originated around the decade before the middle of the 6th century or soon after. The last representative of this series is the peploskore , which, however, did not exist until around 530 BC. BC - hardly a work by the same artist could have been, even if the attribution of both works to the Rampin-Meister was previously widely accepted. A tradition developed in the porosity of Athens and thus in a much softer material can be grasped in these form elements , as can be seen on the small porous gables of the Acropolis from the 1st half of the 6th century BC. Encountered. The dating of the rider Rampin varies between 560 BC. BC and 550 BC BC, with a dating after 546 BC. Is considered.

interpretation

Back of the rider rampin; Plaster cast in the Museum of Classical Archeology , Cambridge

Archaic sculpture is generally conceptually oriented towards frontality. The rider Rampin with his inclination to the left while the horse looks to the right deviates from this requirement. For this reason, Walter-Herwig Schuchhardt had already put forward the hypothesis in 1939 that the rider Rampin was part of an anathema formed from two equestrian statues , whereby the horses had to be reconstructed facing each other and the riders facing outwards. He proposed to see in the group anathem to be postulated a representation of two historical personalities or the Dioscuri , whereby he considered the latter to be improbable and thought of Hippias and Hipparchus , the sons of the Athenian tyrant Peisistratos , for the former .

The interpretation as part of a two-figure equestrian anathem found widespread acceptance, especially since other horse fragments among the finds seemed to suggest this. The question of who was depicted, however, remained controversial. Against the Dioscuri the wreath of leaves on the head of the rider Rampin was used , against the sons of Peisistratos above all the time position determined on the basis of the style, since only after the Battle of Pallene in 546/545 BC. The position of the Peisistratiden was so consolidated that such a monument could be erected. At that point, however, Hippias and Hipparchus were too young to be portrayed as bearded men. Herodotus narrates her participation in a battle as mounted, but the timing is unclear.

The leaves of the wreath on the rider's head seem to indicate a winner in a hip agon . They are interpreted as leaves of celery , as it was given as an honor by the Nemeen . The rider Rampin is therefore interpreted as an anathema donated on the occasion of an equestrian victory. Since an examination of the fragments, which were assigned to a second rider and his horse, no longer makes it seem likely that they belong to the same monument, one sees in the rider more cautiously the individual monument of a noble young man of aristocratic origin, like many on the Athens Acropolis existed in archaic times.

literature

  • John Boardman : Greek sculpture. The archaic time. A manual (= cultural history of the ancient world . Volume 5). Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1981, ISBN 3-8053-0346-7 , p. 92 f., Figure 114.
  • Mary Ann Eaverly: Archaic Greek Equestrian Sculpture. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 1995, pp. 21-22. 73–78 No. 1, Plates 1–4.
  • Peter Cornelis Bol (ed.): The history of ancient sculpture. Volume 1: Early Greek Plastic. Zabern, Mainz 2002, p. 203 f.
  • Werner Fuchs , Josef Floren : The Greek sculpture. Volume 1: The geometric and archaic sculpture ( handbook of archeology ). Beck, Munich 1987, p. 278.
  • Marianne Hamiaux: Musée du Louvre. Les sculptures grecques. Volume 1: Des origins à la fin du IVe siècle avant J.-C. Second edition. Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris 2001, p. 88 f. Cat. No. 80.
  • Antoine Hermary: Images de l'apothéose des Dioscures. In Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique . Volume 102, 1978, pp. 51-76, here: pp. 74-75 ( online ).
  • Jürgen Kleine : Investigations into the chronology of Attic art from Peisistratos to Themistocles (= Istanbuler Mitteilungen. Supplement 8). Wasmuth, Tübingen 1973, pp. 36-40.
  • Humfry Payne, Gerard Mackworth Young: Archaic Marble Sculpture from the Acropolis. Cresset Press, London 1936, pp. 6-9, plates 11 a-c. 124, 133, 3-4, 1d-e.
  • Francis Prost: Notes de sculpture grecque, I. La barbe du cavalier Rampin. In: Topoi. Volume 8, 1998, pp. 9-29 ( digitized version ).
  • Ellen Schneider: Investigations into the body image of Attic Kuroi. Bibliopolis, Möhnesee 1999, pp. 252-255.
  • Hans Schrader (Ed.): The archaic marble sculptures of the Acropolis. Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1939, pp. 214–225. Cat.No. 312 Plates 134-137.
  • Chariklia Tsirivaku-Neumann: To the master of the peploskore. In: Communications from the German Archaeological Institute. Athenian Department. Volume 79, 1964, pp. 114–126, here: pp. 121–126 with supplement 63.

Web links

Commons : Rampin tab  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Something like Mary Ann Eaverly: Archaic Greek Equestrian Sculpture. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 1995, p. 35.
  2. ^ Brunilde S. Ridgeway : Birds, 'Meniskoi,' and Head Attributes. In: American Journal of Archeology . Volume 94, 1990, pp. 583-612, here: p. 599, thinks of a star to identify the sitter as a dioscur.
  3. ↑ Werner Fuchs , Josef Floren : The Greek sculpture. Volume 1: The geometric and archaic sculpture ( handbook of archeology ). Beck, Munich 1987, p. 278.
  4. ↑ Werner Fuchs, Josef Floren: The Greek sculpture. Volume 1: The geometric and archaic sculpture ( handbook of archeology ). Beck, Munich 1987, p. 278.
  5. ^ John Boardman : Greek sculpture. The archaic time. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1981, p. 92 f., Figure 114.
  6. ^ Jürgen Kleine : Investigations on the chronology of Attic art from Peisistratos to Themistocles (= Istanbuler Mitteilungen. Supplement 8). Wasmuth, Tübingen 1973, p. 37; John Boardman : Greek sculpture. The archaic time. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1981, caption for Figure 114, dates from 546 BC. Not for excluded; Thomas Schäfer : Picked and hidden. On the meaning and function of roughened surfaces in late archaic and early classical sculpture. In: Yearbook of the German Archaeological Institute. Volume 111, 1996, pp. 25–74, here: p. 63 note 147, dated around 540 BC Chr.
  7. ↑ Walter-Herwig Schuchhardt in: Hans Schrader : The archaic marble sculptures of the Acropolis. Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1939, pp. 214–225, for interpretation specifically p. 224 f.
  8. ↑ Herodotus 1.62.
  9. ↑ For the overall discussion see Francis Prost: Notes de sculpture grecque, I. La barbe du cavalier Rampin. In: Topoi. Volume 8, 1998, pp. 9-29.
  10. ↑ Walter-Herwig Schuchhardt in: Hans Schrader: The archaic marble sculptures of the Acropolis. Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1939, pp. 215-223, Akropolismuseum inventory numbers 384, 540, 565, 570, 4112, 4330.