The subject of this statue has not been identified with certainty. The warrior held a shield on his left arm and probably a spear in his right hand, and he stands with his feet carefully placed on a sloping surface. The figure must have some association with the sea because a planklike form surrounded by waves is carved on the plinth of a second copy in the British Museum, London. It has been suggested that he is the Greek hero Protesilaos, who ignored an oracle's warning that the first Greek to step on Trojan soil would be the first to die in battle. This statue might represent him descending from the ship ready to meet his fate. Following the discovery of a wound carved in the right armpit, the figure was reinterpreted as a dying warrior falling backward and identified as a famous statue by the sculptor Kresilas. Many other identifications have been suggested to explain the unusual stance and the unique iconography of this statue and of the copy in London, but none has been generally accepted.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Marble statue of a wounded warrior
Period:Mid-Imperial, Antonine
Date:ca. 138–181 CE
Culture:Roman
Medium:Marble
Dimensions:H. 87 in. (220.98 cm)
Classification:Stone Sculpture
Credit Line:Frederick C. Hewitt Fund, 1925
Accession Number:25.116
Said to be from near Rome (Richter 1954, p. 23).
Early 1920s, head and body excavated from near Rome; 1924-1925, acquired by Ugo Jandolo from his uncle, Alessandro Jandolo; acquired April 20, 1925, purchased from Ugo Jandolo, Rome.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1928–1929. "A Statue of Protesilaos in the Metropolitan Museum." Metropolitan Museum Studies, 1(2): pp. 187–200, figs. 1–7, 15–18.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1929. "A Statue of Protesilaos." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 24(1): pp. 26–9, figs. 1–3.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1930. Handbook of the Classical Collection. pp. 353, 356, fig. 255, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Waldhauer, Oskar Ferdinandovich. 1932–1933. "On the Statue of Protesilaos in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." Metropolitan Museum Studies, 4(2): p. 198, fig. 1.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1936[1934]. A Guide to the Collections, Part 1: Ancient and Oriental Art, 2nd edn. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 137, 275, pl. 115a, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1954. Catalogue of Greek Sculptures. no. 27, pp. 22–23, pls. 25-26, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Bandinelli, Ranuccio Bianchi. 1958. Enciclopedia dell'Arte Antica, Classica e Orientale, Vol. 3. p. 22, fig. 27, Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana.
Bandinelli, Ranuccio Bianchi. 1965. Enciclopedia dell'Arte Antica, Classica e Orientale, Vol. 6. p. 494, fig. 560, Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana.
Frel, Jiri. 1970. "The Volneratus Deficiens by Cresilas." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 29(4): pp. 170–77, figs. 1, 6–7, 9, 11, 13.
Bol, Peter C. 1972. "Die Skulpturen des Schiffsfundes von Antikythera." Ph.D. Diss. Universität Freiburg.
Robertson, Martin and Cambridge University Press. 1975. A History of Greek Art, Vols. 1 and 2. pp. 343, 677 n. 121, Cambridge, England.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1987. Greece and Rome. no. 44, pp. 62–3, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Cohen, Beth. 1991. "Perikles' Portrait and the Riace Bronzes: New Evidence for "Schinocephaly." Hesperia, 60(4): pp. 485–86, pl. 121b.
Howard Kathleen. 1994. Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide: Works of Art Selected by Philippe De Montebello pp. 83–4, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1994. Vol. 7: Oidipous-Theseus. "Palamedes," p. 146, no. 6; "Protesilaos," p. 556, no. 14a, pl. 431, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Bol, Renate. 1998. Amazones Volneratae: Untersuchungen ze den Ephesischen Amazonenstauen. p. 119, n 679, Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern.
Hollinshead, Mary B. 2002. "Extending the Reach of Marble: Struts in Greek and Roman Sculpture." The Ancient Art of Emulation: Studies in Artistic Originality and Tradition from the Present to Classical Antiquity, Dr. Elaine K. Gazda, ed. pp. 146–8 n. 89, fig. 6.20, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Milleker, Elizabeth J. 2003. Light on Stone: Greek and Roman Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a Photographic Essay. p. 97, pls. 14–6, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Bol, Peter C. 2004. Die Geschichte der antiken Bildhauerkunst, Vol. 2. pp. 17–8, fig. 22, a, b, Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern.
Kreikenbom, Detlev. 2004. "Der Reiche Stil." Die Geschichte der antiken Bildhauerkunst, Vol. 2, Peter C. Bol, ed. p. 241, fig. 22, a, b, Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 140, pp. 126–27, 432-33, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Zanker, Paul, Seán Hemingway, Christopher S. Lightfoot, and Joan R. Mertens. 2019. Roman Art : A Guide through the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Collection. no. 4, pp. 44–45, New York: Scala Publishers.
Zweifel, Jonas. 2020. "Ein neuer Deutungsvorschlag für den sogenannten Protesilaos." BOREAS : Münstersche Beiträge zur Archäologie, v. 43/44:
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