Moschophoros

A man carrying a calf for sacrifice.

Early Greece was largely an agricultural economy, and this sculpture reminds us that to give up a calf to the gods was a sacrifice indeed. Hence the sculpture was set up on the Acropolis, the holy citadel of Athens.

The sculpture looks remarkably modern; the calf’s face is positioned to echo the man’s, and the whole group is united with a clever X-shaped composition of human arms and calf legs

Number

Material

Marble

Location of Original

Athens, Acropolis Museum 624

Size

1.65m

Accession

Purchased 1884

References

Lippold: Griechische Plastik, 37 (n.2), pl. 10.3
Karo: Personality in Greek Archaic Art, 254
Schrader: Archaischen Marmorbildwerke des Akropolis (1939), 278-, pls. 153-4
Payne & Young: Archaic Marble Sculpture from the Acropolis, pls. 2-4
Dickins: Catalogue of the Acropolis Museum I, 156-
Walston: Catalogue of Casts in the Museum of Classical Archaeology (1889), 18, no.49
Stewart: Greek Sculpture, 120, pls. 123 & 126
Hurwit: The Athenian Acropolis (1999), 102

Date

c.570-560 BCE

Provenance

Excavated on the Acropolis, Athens in 1864

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