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Wrestler

Museum Label:
Wrestler
20th-century bronze cast from ancient Roman marble copy of Greek bronze original.
Location: Museo Nazionale, Naples

Chiurazzi description:
Discobolus? The movement of the body suggests that the disk is just about to be thrown. The eyes are of stone. Modern critics believe that it is an Ephebus preparing to wrestle. Inspired by the greek art of the IV century b.C. It belongs to to the masterpieces found in the excavations of Herculanum.

Subject info:
Herculaneum: the sculptures of the Villa of the Papyri
As it gradually swallowed up an entire town, the volcanic mud of Vesuvius also preserved an extraordinary wealth of Classical sculpture. At points the mud rose so gently as to ooze over eggs without breaking them and fill rooms without disturbing the position of their contents. Much was simply encased as it rested, hermetically sealed in mud as it assumed its hardened form. Faced with such conditions, early excavators located but did not fully uncover, the villa of the Papyri, and to this day it remains buried. But from shafts dug down through the mud betwen 1750 and 1765 into this grand private estate, a haul of some eighty pieces of art was lifted to the surface. Despite taking its name from the copious rolls of papyrus found carbonized in its extensive library, the mud of the villa gave up the largest private collection of sculptural art of the Classical tradition found in any one ancient house.

More information on other sculpture.