Cleveland Museum of Art

Torso of a Kouros

Date

c. 550 BCE

Medium

marble

Culture

Greece, Archaic period

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Known as a kouros , the ancient Greek word for a youth, this fragmentary statue belongs to a relatively rare type of large-scale stone sculpture made for little more than a century—shortly before 600 BCE to soon after 500 BCE. A nude youth standing with arms to the sides and one foot slightly advanced, the type probably originated under Egyptian influence, but then developed along entirely Greek lines. Found in sanctuaries as well as cemeteries across the ancient Greek world, kouroi may represent gods—especially Apollo—as well as mortals. Although incomplete, this kouros retains much of its beautifully finished and patterned surface. In antiquity, brightly colored paint would probably have rendered this kouros more lifelike.

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