Commentary Prepared by Dr. Julia Lenaghan, Ashmolean Museum

C 036
Copy of Polykleitos’ Diadoumenos from Delos. Athens

Marble
Statue
1.95 m with plinth, 1.86 m without plinth

From Delos. Found in the "House of the Diadumenos" with two portrait statues from the end of the second century BC.
Greece, Athens, National Museum, 1826

Preservation:
The statue is missing the hands, the wrists, the ends of the forearms, the ends of the fillet, the tip of the nose, part of the big toe, and the penis. The top of the head was worked separately.

Description:
The statue depicts a naked youth who is in the act of binding a fillet around his head. He stands with his weight on his right leg which is straight and tense. Along the outside of the right leg and attached above the knee, is a tree trunk support, draped over which is a cloak and at the foot of which is a quiver. The left leg is withdrawn and bent. Only the toes of the left foot touch the ground; the rest of the foot rests on a marble wedge. The left hip is lower than the right hip but the left shoulder is higher than the right shoulder. The right upper arm extends downward and away from the body. The right forearm is raised and also moves away from the body. The left upper arm extends only slightly downwards and to the left of the body. The left forearm folds over the upper arm and reaches upward towards the head. The head tilts downwards and to the left. The body is muscular and lean. The pronounced linea alba curves in a smooth arc from the head (to the right of center) to the navel (to the right of center). The illiac furrow (line from the hip to the groin), the ribs below the armpits, and the area around the throat and shoulders (the clavicle, trapezius, and deltoids) are clearly articulated. The head has a flat wide cranium with a face that is broad between the temples but tapers to the chin. The brow appears as a short rectangular area because it is traversed horizontally by the broad fillet which encircles the head. In addition, the eyebrows are virtually horizontal. The cheeks are tight and merge at a solid but short chin. The nose has a broad ridge and the lips are full and droop down at the corners. They are separated by a deep groove which dips at the center and thus, gives the upper lip a central overhang. The hair, which leaves the ears uncovered, is short and rendered in voluminous locks which, though they are distinct, have no fine definition of their individual strands. The tousled locks originate at the crown in a starfish pattern. Encircling the head running above the ears and across the brow is a broad fillet which folds over itself. The fillet, which features engraved lines denoting the folds, is tightly wrapped against the head and the hair above and below it springs out from it.

Discussion:
The statue is the one of the two most complete copies (the other is from Vaison, now in London) of a much copied bronze original of the late fifth century. The original is almost without doubt a statue made by Polykleitos and known as the “Diadumenos.” It corresponds to the literary description of a work by Polykleitos that depicted a youth binding a fillet about his head and it resembles, particularly in the torso, the “Doryphoros” of Polykleitos (cat.no.32). Although Polykleitos’s “Diadumenos” is mentioned only three times in the ancient sources (Pliny NH 34.55, Seneca EpMor 65.4, and Lucian ), there are at least sixty extant reproductions of it from the ancient world. With the exception of Ridgway who adamantly resists any chronological assumption, most scholars consider the “Diadumenos” to date after the “Doryphoros” and to be a late work of Polykleitos, principally on account of the rendering of the hair, which is less schematic and freer than that of the “Doryphoros”, and the stance, which is more complex than that of the “Doryphoros”; the left arm is raised higher, the right arm extends farther away from the body, and the head turns farther to the left. Pliny differentiates the two famous Polykleitan statues by calling the “Doryphoros” a “viriliter puer” and the “Diadumenos” a “molliter iuvenis.” These words, however, seem more concerned with literary conceit than statuary. The subject of the “Diadumenos” remains unclear. The statue in Athens from Delos features a quiver in front of the tree trunk support that suggests that the statue was intended as Apollo. Other statues have a palm tree trunk support that might denote either Apollo or an athlete. An example in the Torlonia collection shows halteres (athletic equipment) (to be sure restored but on the basis of the extant traces) on the tree trunk. Whereas Ridgway suspects that the original statue represented Apollo, Bol is of the opinion that it represented an athlete. The statue in Athens from Delos was found with two portrait statues that can be dated to the end of the second century BCE and to which the Delos statue is stylistically similar. The Delos “Diadumenos” is, therefore, dated to the late Hellenistic period. In comparison to other copies of the “Diadumenos” the stance of the Delos statue is looser; the free leg turns too far to its left. Yet the position of the arms given by the statue appears to be accurate. The position of the head of the original cannot be determined since it varies slightly in all the copies. For the reconstruction of the torso, in particular its modelling, the Delos statue is not considered the best copy. Its torso appears wider than that of other torsos. Moreover, torsos in Basel and Naples, dated to the early imperal period when copies were purer, show clearer articulation of bone structure and musculature. The face of the original, like the placement of the head, is difficult to establish. Certainly the details of the head of the Delos statue correspond well with those of the heads of the New York and Madrid statues.

Bibliography:
L. Couve, "Diadumene" (MonPiot 3 1896) pp.137-139 pls.14-15 initial publication
T. Lorenz, Polyklet (Wiesbaden 1972)
P. Zanker, Klassizistische Statuen (Mainz 1974) pp.11-13 late Hellenistic work, lower body and torso not as close to the original as often considered
M. Robertson, A History of Greek Art (Cambridge 1975) p.331 later work of Polykleitos, subject unknown
P. Bol, "Diadumenos" in Polyklet: Die Bildhauer der griechischen Klassik (Mainz am Rhein 1990) pp.206-212 discussion of Diadumenos, often in comparison to Doryphoros; considers Delos copy to represent Apollo but the original likely to have been an athlete
D. Kreikenbom, Bildwerke nach Polyklet (Berlin 1990) pp.109-111, 188 no.V.1 stylistic evaluation, dates to the late Hellenistic period
B. S. Ridgway, "Paene ad Exemplum: Polykleitos' Other Works" in Polykleitos, the Doryphoros, and Tradition (Wisconsin 1995) pp.187-188 questions dating of the original and suggests that the original represented Apollo (quiver on the strut of Delos and palm tree elsewhere, Lorenz’s Paris impossible)
K. Stemmer (ed.), Standorte: Kontext und Funktion antiken Skulptur (Berlin 1995) p.397 C 387 notes that even though we know where the statue found, we do not know the function of the house (private, or for public corporation, etc.) nor do we know what the statue represented (god or athlete)