Roman copy of the head of an Ephesian Amazon. This head has been often associated with the headless Mattei Amazon, and is sometimes called the Amazon of Pheidias.
The ancient author Lucian, writing in the second century, tells us that Pheidias made a sculpture of an Amazon “who leans on her spear”. This corroborates Pliny’s naming of Pheidias as one of the possible sculptors of the Amazon of Ephesus, if not the fanciful story of the artists’ selection process
Naples, Museo Nazionale
Lippold: Griechische Plastik, 171 (n.7)
Richter: Sculpture & Sculptors of the Greeks (1950), 229, fig.620
Lawrence: Classical Sculpture (1928), 208-
Furtwängler: Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture, 128
Pliny: Natural History XXXIV.19
Lucian: Essays in Portraiture, 4
Found at Baiae in the Bay of Naples
