Identifier: greekbronzes00murr (find matches)
Title: Greek bronzes
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Murray, A. S. (Alexander Stuart), 1841-1904
Subjects: Bronzes, Greek
Publisher: London : Seeley and Co. New York : Macmillan
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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(...) We begin with a figure which has been longer and more widely known than any other; and the reason is this, that up to now it is the best copy in existence of a particularly famous statue. We are told that Darius, King of Persia, when he sacked the town of Miletus in 494 B.C., carried off from a neighbouring temple, long famous for its oracle, a bronze statue of Apollo, the work of a Greek sculptor, Canachos. After a lapse of nearly two centuries, when Persia had been forced to yield to the Macedonian conquest, the statue was returned to Miletus, and thereafter appears on the coinage of that town, where it is represented as an archaic statue of Apollo holding out a fawn in his right hand. Many instances are known of statues which had become famous in one way or another, being copiedon local coins; and when it was remembered that Pliny had described the Apollo of Canachos as holding out a deer in one hand, hardly a doubt (...)
Text Appearing After Image:
Fig. 3. — Bronze Statuette. Apollo of Miletus. British Museum.
(...) could remain that the figure on the coins of Miletus was that same Apollo. But the workmanship of the coins is too rude to be of any artistic use. At this point the statuette comes to our aid. We see at once that it has been copied from the same original as the coin. And though much may be wanting in the spirit, as undoubtedly there is in the details, yet we may be thankful for being thus able to realise at least the pose, the proportions, and the general structure of the original. There is, however, one difficulty that ought to be mentioned here, though it is more curious than serious. Pliny says (I quote the translation of Miss Jex-Blake, xxxiv. 75): Kanachos made the nude Apollo which is named the Lover, and is in the temple at Didyma, of Ae(?)ginetan bronze, and with it a stag so poised upon its feet that a thread can be drawn beneath them while the heel and toe alternately catch the ground, both parts working (...)

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