Lysippos

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Lysippos was a Greek sculptor of the 4th century BC. He was successor of the famous sculptor Polykleitos. Among the works attributed to him are the so-called Horses of Saint Mark; Eros Stringing the Bow (various copies exist; the best is in the British Museum); Agias (known from a marble copy found and preserved in Delphi); Weary Hercules (also known as the Farnese Herakles which was originally placed in the Baths of Caracalla, though the surviving marble copy is in the Naples Archeological Museum) and Apoxyomenos or The Scraper (known from a Roman marble copy in the Vatican Museums).

He was born at Sikyon around 390 BC. A worker in bronze in his youth, he taught himself the art of sculpture, later becoming head of the school of Argos and Sikyon. He produced, according to Pliny the Elder, more than 1,500 works, all of them in bronze.

His pupil, Chares of Lindos, constructed the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. Since this statue does not exist today, debate continues as to wheather the statue was cast bronze or hammered sheet metal.

During his life Lysippos was the personal sculptor of Alexander the Great. One sculpture of Alexander still exists today at the Louvre Museum in France. Lysippos, along with Skopas and Praxiteles, are considered the three great sculptors of the Classical antiquity era, bringing transition into the Hellenistic era.