Amazon statue types

Pliny the Elder records five bronze statues of Amazons in the Artemision of Ephesus. He explains the existence of such a quantity of sculptures on the same theme in the same place by describing a 5th-century BC competition between the artists Polyclitus, Phidias, Kresilas, "Kydon" and Phradmon; thus:

This anecdote encouraged the much-discussed identifications of four known types of Roman marble copies of the wounded Amazon with sculptors of lost originals that may be dated to 430 BC on stylistic grounds. These types, each well represented by numerous Roman copies and heads, are identified with three of Pliny's five sculptors; a type derived from Phradmon has not been identified. Of these, however, only the identification of the Mattei type as deriving from Phidias's original is undisputed. The assignment of the Sciarra-type as deriving from Polyclitus's original and Sosicles-type as deriving from Kresilas's original (or vice versa), on the other hand, is unestablished, although having been discussed since 1897. The German scholar R. Bolnach has written a thorough form-analysis for the Sciarra/Polycletus and Sosikles/Kresilas pairings.

Dietrich von Bothmer dismissed the Plinian anecdote as an etiological embroidery invented to account for the five statues of wounded Amazons of varying styles. Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway presented her doubts ("it is difficult to see why all five Amazons were set up if only one 'won' and became the object of the dedication"), noting Pliny's awareness of the discrepancies in age of the sculptors; she presented an alternative, cumulative origin, building on fifth century prototypes, added to by Phradmon, whom she identifies as a fourth-century sculptor, and supplemented by later classicizing models.

The usual designations of the statues, following Adolf Furtwängler, group them under the headings the Lansdowne type, the Capitoline type, the Mattei type and the single example known as the Villa Doria Pamphilj type. A fifth type was excavated at the theater of Ephesus in 1898 but did not enter the discussion until the 1950s.

...
Wikipedia