Discobolus

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Townley Discobolus, London, British Museum, with incorrectly restored head defying the balance of the figure

The Discobolus of Myron ("discus thrower" Greek Δισκοβόλος του Μύρωνα) is a famous Roman marble copy of a lost Greek bronze original, completed during the zenith of the classical period between 460-450 BC. Myron's Discobolus was long known from descriptions:

"When you came in the hall," he said, "didn't you notice a totally gorgeous statue up there, by Demetrios the portraitist?" "Surely you don't mean the discus-thrower," said I, "the one bent over into the throwing-position, with his head turned back to the hand that holds the discus, and the opposite knee slightly flexed, like one who will spring up again after the throw?"

"Not that one," he said, "that's one of Myron's works, that Diskobolos you speak of..." (Lucian of Samosata, Philopseudes c. 18)^[1]

Its discovery in 1781, at a Roman property of the Massimo family^[2] who installed it initially in their Palazzo Massimo delle Colonne then at Palazzo Lancelotti, made it instantly famous, though the Massimo jealously guarded access to it (Haskell and Penny 1981:200). A discus thrower is depicted about to release his throw. The moment captured in the statue is an example of rhythmos, harmony and balance. Myron is often credited as being the first sculpture to master this style. Naturally, as always in Greek athletics, the Discobolus is completely naked. His pose is said to be unnatural to a human, and today considered a rather inefficient way to throw the discus. Also there is very little emotion shown in the discus thrower's face. The other trademark of Myron depicted in this sculpture is how well the body is proportioned, symmetria.

Discobolus of Myron in the Botanical Garden of Copenhagen, Denmark, with correctly restored head

After the discovery of the Discobolus Palombara a second notable Discobolus was excavated at Hadrian's Villa in 1790 and was purchased by the English antiquary and art dealer established in Rome, Thomas Jenkins, at public auction in 1792. The English connoisseur Charles Towneley paid him £400 for the statue, which arrived at the semi-public gallery Townley commissioned in Park Street, London, in 1794. It was bought for the British Museum, with the rest of Townley's marbles, in July 1805 (illustration, above right).^[3]

Other Roman copies in marble have been recovered, and torsoes that were already known in the seventeenth century, but that had been wrongly restored, have been identified as further repetitions after Myron's model. In the early eighteenth century, Pierre-Étienne Monnot restored a torso now recognized as an example of Myron's Discobolus as a Wounded Gladiator who supports himself on his arm as he sinks to the ground; the completed sculpture was donated before 1734 by Pope Clement XII to the Capitoline Museums, where it remains.^[4]

The Palombrara Discobolus was instantly famous. In 1937 Adolf Hitler negotiated to buy it, and eventually succeeded in 1938, when Galeazzo Ciano, Minister of Foreign Affairs, sold it to him for five million lire, over the protests of Giuseppe Bottai, Minister of Education, and the scholarly community. It was shipped by rail to Munich and displayed in the Glyptothek; it was returned in 1948.

Prior to the statue's discovery the term Discobolus had been applied in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to a standing figure holding a discus (compare Discophoros), which Visconti identified as the Discobolus of Naukydes of Argos, mentioned by Pliny (Haskell and Penny 1981:200).

Examples of the Discobolus of Myron include:

Discobolus Palombara now in the Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome. The Italian archeologist Carlo Fea identified the sculpture as a copy from the original of Myron.
two copies found at Tivoli, 1791, one acquired by the Vatican Museum, the other, from Hadrian's Villa, bought by Charles Towneley and is now in the British Museum, London. The head was wrongly restored, as Richard Payne Knight pointed out, but Townley was convinced his was the original and better copy.
a copy discovered in 1906 in the ruins of a Roman villa at Tor Paterna in the royal estate of Castel Porziana, now also in the Museo Nazionale Romano.

[edit] Notes

^ The Lucian reference and Quintillian, ii.13.xviii-x, are noted by Haskell and Penny 1981:200.
^ It was found at the Villa Palombara on the Esquiline Hill. It was initially restored by Giuseppe Angelini. The Discobolus Palombara stands 1.55m.
^ Tony Kitto, "The celebrated connoisseur: Charles Townley, 1737-1805" Minerva Magazine May/June 2005, in connection with a British Museum exhibition clebrating the bicentennial of the Townley purchase. [1]
^ Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique: the Lure of classical Sculpture 1500-1900 (Yale University Press), pp 200, 227.