Timotheus (sculptor)

Timotheus (Greek: Τιμόθεος; born in Epidaurus; died in Epidaurus, c. 340 BC) was a Greek sculptor of the 4th century BC, one of the rivals and contemporaries of Scopas of Paros, among the sculptors who worked for their own fame on the construction of the grave of Mausolus at Halicarnassus between 353 and 350 BC.[1] He was apparently the leading sculptor at the temple of Asklepios at Epidaurus, c. 380 BC. To him is attributed[2] a sculpture of Leda and the Swan in which the queen Leda of Sparta protected a swan from an eagle, on the basis of which a Roman marble copy in the Capitoline Museums[3] is said to be "after Timotheus". The theme must have been popular, judging by the more than two dozen Roman marble copies that survive.[4] The most famous version has been that in the Capitoline Museums in Rome, purchased by Pope Clement XIV from the heirs of Cardinal Alessandro Albani. A highly restored version is in the Museo del Prado, and an incomplete one is in the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut.

Roman marble of Leda and the Swan (Prado)
Leda and the Swan (Yale University Art Gallery)

Notes
  1. Pliny the Elder, Natural History 36.30-31.
  2. The connection with Timotheus was first made by Franz Winter, (Mittheil. Arch. Athen. 1894:157-62 and pl. vi), on the basis of comparison of drapery of a Nereid or a Hygeia of Timotheus, just then being excavated at Epidaurus. (Adolf Michaelis, A Century of Archaeological Discoveries (1908:313)
  3. Inv. MC0302.
  4. Richard Hamann, "Original und Kopie" Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 15 (1949, pp. 135-156) p 153.

Further reading
  • Reiche, A. "Die copien der 'Leda von Timotheos'" Antike Plastik 17 (1978:21-55).
  • Kunzl, E. and G. Horn, Die 'Hygeia' des Timotheos 1969.
  • Schorb, B. Timotheos 1965.
  • Brill's New Pauly, "Timotheus".
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.