Cleveland Museum of Art

Torso of a Youth

Date

c. 150–100 BCE

Medium

marble

Culture

Greece

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

The exceptional workmanship suggests that this sculpture was carved by a Greek sculptor. Its incomplete state of preservation makes precise identification difficult, but it was most likely an Apollo or Dionysos, modeled in the soft, somewhat effeminate style of Praxiteles. The museum’s Apollo Sauroktonos is a useful parallel. The two drill holes in the upper chest are ancient and were possibly used to support separate long tresses of hair. The sculpture may well be a copy of a fourth-century original. It was common practice in the 1700s and 1800s to attach new heads or limbs to fragmented ancient statues like this one.

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