Bronze head from Olympia. Hollow cast, probably from a complete figure which served as a support, perhaps for a bowl (there is a hole at the crown of the head). The hair is shown by incised vertical wavy lines at the back but in horizontal layers at the side. The eyes were inlaid.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Wednesday, May 29, 2024
A Hole in the Head
Bronze head from Olympia, ca. 630 BC (Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum, F 1890):
John Boardman, Greek Sculpture: The Archaic Period (London: Thames and Hidson, 1978), fig. 37: