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| ROMAN BRONZE NUDE ZEUS HOLDING THUNDERBOLTS | |
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| in his right hand; in his upraised left hand he once held a scepter. A himation is draped over his left shoulder and he stands in contrapposto. After the original Greek sculpture by Myron, ca. 450 BC. According to the 1st century BC Greek geographer Strabo (XIV, 637), the original was part of a group depicting Athena recommending to Zeus that the hero Herakles be allowed entry to Olympus. The original was set up on the island of Samos but was removed by Marc Antony, however, Augustus later returned the Athena and Herakles but set up the Zeus in a small shrine on the Capitoline. While there is a large-size marble copy of the returned pair in the Munich Glyptothek, only small copies of the Zeus remain with the exception of a torso from the Marcellus theater in Rome. |
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Ex German private collection. Cf. B. Vierneisel-Schlörb, Glyptothek Munich, Catalogue of the Sculptures II (1979) and also 127ff. in M. Tiverios, et al., “Zeus”, Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, VIII.1 (1997) 310-374. |
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| Height: | 4.37 ins. |
| Circa: | 1st Century AD |
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