[Illustration: FIG. 23.—Head of so-called _Oil-pourer_. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.]
Statue of the so-called _Oil-pourer_. Glyptothek, Munich.]
Another ordinary palæstra motive was employed in representing the athlete after the contest, scraping oil and dirt from his body and arms with the scraping-blade or strigil (στλεγγίς, _strigilis_).[1048] This motive is not uncommon on r.-f. vase-paintings of the fifth century B. C.[1049] It was treated in sculpture by many masters. Pliny mentions such statues of athletes _destringentes se_ (ἀποξυόμενοι), by Polykleitos, Lysippos, and Daidalos of Sikyon.[1050] Perhaps the _perixyomenoi_ by Antignotos and Daïppos, the latter the son of Lysippos, had the same motive.[1051] Of the _Apoxyomenos_ of Polykleitos we have no authenticated copies in sculpture, though Furtwaengler believes that he has found reminiscences of it on gems which represent a youth resting the weight of his body on the left leg, the right being drawn back (_i. e._, in the attitude of the _Doryphoros_), the right forearm extended, and the left holding a strigil. The similarity of these gem-designs makes it certain that they are all derived from a well-known work of art.[1052] Perhaps the fine bronze statuette, dating from the middle of the fifth century B. C., and now in the Loeb collection in Munich, represents the pose of the _destringens se_ by Polykleitos.[1053] It represents a nude youth resting the weight of the body on the soles of both feet, the left one slightly advanced, and holding a strigil in the raised right hand. The famous marble copy of an _Apoxyomenos_ in the Vatican[1054] (Pl. 29), which, because of its long slim legs and graceful ankles, might well represent a runner, has long been held to represent the canon of Lysippos, as it exhibits proportions widely different from those employed by Polykleitos, and agreeing with Pliny’s account of Lysippos’ innovations.[1055] However, the doubts arising in recent years as to whether this statue is a copy of Lysippos’ statue or a later work will be considered at length in Chapter VI.[1056]
Statue of an _Apoxyomenos_. Uffizi Gallery, Florence.]
The same motive is exemplified by many existing statues, statuettes, reliefs, etc. The marble statue of an athlete in the Uffizi, Florence, (Pl. 12),[1057] a copy of an original of the end of the fifth century B. C., wrongly restored as holding in both hands a vase at which the athlete is looking down, was interpreted by Bloch as an ephebe pouring oil from a lekythos held in the right hand into an aryballos held in the left. This action for an athlete has been characterized by Furtwaengler as “unparallelled, unclassical and, above all, absurd.” Through recent discoveries we now know that it represents an apoxyomenos, and that it should be restored with the left forearm close to the thigh, and with the right crossing the abdomen diagonally in the direction of the left hand. This attitude so closely corresponds with that of a figure on a gem as to make it probable that both gem and statue are copies of the same original. The figure on the gem[1058] holds a strigil in both hands and is generally explained as scraping the dirt from the left thigh; the light hand holds the handle and the left the blade. A hydria, palm-branch, and crown are pictured to the right—showing that the figure represents an athlete, just as the statue has the swollen ears of one. The attention of the athlete in both monuments is concentrated on the operation involved—a concentration reminding us of Myron’s _Diskobolos_. While, however, in the latter work the concentration is momentary, it is less transient in the Florence statue and also in the Munich _Oil-pourer_. This pose is too conscious in the Florentine statue to be the work of Myron. Arndt names no artist, but as the similarity between the head of the statue and that of the _Oil-pourer_ is so marked, and as every one now regards the latter as Attic—even if not by Alkamenes—he thinks that the two must be by the same Attic sculptor, although the Uffizi statue is somewhat later than the Munich one.[1059] The original of the Florence statue was famous, if we may judge by the existing number of replicas with variations.[1060]