Provenance
- 1973
Robin Symes, Limited, founded 1977, dissolved 2005 (London, England), by partial credit and partial purchase, sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1973.
Open Content images tend to be large in file-size. To avoid potential data charges from your carrier, we recommend making sure your device is connected to a Wi-Fi network before downloading.
Not on view due to temporary Getty closure
Statuette of Alexander the Great
Unknown
East Greek
2nd century B.C.
Marble
73.AA.17
31.5 × 10.7 × 7 cm (12 3/8 × 4 3/16 × 2 3/4 in.)
Ancient authors record that Alexander the Great was so pleased with the portraits of himself that were created by Lysippos that he decreed no other sculptor would make his image. Although this statement is probably exaggerated, Lysippos did make some of the most powerful and lasting images of Alexander. It also shows that Alexander understood the propagandistic importance of his image and the need to control it.
This broken statuette, carved in the 100s B.C., is a small-scale variant of a statue made in the 320s B.C. by Lyssipos. The "Alexander with a Lance" portrayed the king armed and naked, similar to the great heroes of Greek mythology, such as Achilles, with whom Alexander identified. The ruler stands with his weight on one leg, his right arm extended and holding a spear, the left hanging down at his side.
This statuette represents one of the many surviving posthumous images of Alexander, which continued to be made well into the Roman period. It may have been a private devotional image related to the worship of Alexander as a god.
Robin Symes, Limited, founded 1977, dissolved 2005 (London, England), by partial credit and partial purchase, sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1973.
Robin Symes advertisement. Apollo 97 (June 1973), n.p., ill.
"Notable Works of Art Now on the Market: Supplement." The Burlington Magazine 115, no. 843 (June 1973), n.p., pl. IX, ill.
Frel, Jirí, and Elizabeth Buckley. Greek and Roman Portraits in the J. Paul Getty Museum. exh. cat. California State University at Northridge, October 16-November 11, 1973 (1973), p. 12, no. 1, ill.
Frel, Jiří. The Getty Bronze (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1978), p. 22; pl. 7.
Fredericksen, Burton B., Jiří Frel, and Gillian Wilson. Guidebook: The J. Paul Getty Museum. 4th ed. Sandra Morgan, ed. (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1978), p. 33.
Frel, Jiří. Antiquities in the J. Paul Getty Museum: A Checklist; Sculpture I: Greek Originals (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1979), p. 26, no. 102.
Frel, Jiří. Antiquities in the J. Paul Getty Museum: A Checklist; Sculpture II: Greek Portraits and Varia (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, November 1979), addendum, p. 44, no. 102.
Frel, Jiří. Greek Portraits in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1981), pp. 70, 113, no. 21, ill.
Moreno, P. "Opere de Lisippo." Rivista dell'Istituto nazionale d'archeologia e storia dell'arte, 3rd ser. Vols. 6-7 (1983-84), p. 43.
Frel, Jiří. "Ancient Repairs to Classical Sculpture at Malibu." The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 12 (1984), p. 85, no. 30.
Frel, Jirí. "Alexander with the Lance." Lysippe et son influence. Hellas et Roma V (1987). pp. 77-79.
Stewart, Andrew. Faces of Power: Alexander's Image and Hellenistic Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), appendix 5, "The Getty Fragments: A Catalogue," pp. 438-52, p. 425, no. 6.
Thomas, Renate. Eine postume Statuette Ptolemaios' IV. und ihr historischer Kontext: Zur Götterangleichung hellenistischer Herrscher. Trierer Winckelmannsprogramme, 18 (Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 2001), p. 68, n. 103 m.