This is a reduced version, made of marble in Roman times, of the shield of the Athena in the Parthenon by Pheidias. The reliefs depicted on it are a Gorgon’s head in the centre, surrounded by groups of fighting Greeks and Amazons.
The Roman scholar Plutarch writes, describing the original cult statue, not this copy, that the bald figure with his arms raised, just below the middle of the shield, is a self-portrait by Pheidias. Less plausibly he also claims that the figure to our right of Pheidias, with his face hidden, is a portrait of Perikles, who was responsible for the building programme that included the Parthenon.
There are traces of paint on the original, and the all-action style is very different to the more controlled action we see on the Parthenon friezes and pediments
London British Museum 302
Purchased by the Fitzwilliam Museum from Brucciani. Transferred to the Museum in 1884
Lippold: Griechische Plastik, 147 (n.3)
Richter: Sculpture & Sculptors of the Greeks (1950), 218
Richter: Three Critical Periods in Greek Sculpture, 10-11 & n.4, figs.10-13
Walston: Catalogue of Casts in the Museum of Classical Archaeology (1889), 56, no.254
Lawrence: Classical Sculpture (1928), 196
Ras, S: Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique LXVIII-LXIX (1944-5), 163-
Pliny: Natural History XXXVI.18
Hurwit: The Athenian Acropolis (1999), 187
Taken from Athens by Viscount Strangford
