Neo-Attic

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The Gradiva, an example of a Neo-Attic sculpture
The Gradiva, an example of a Neo-Attic sculpture
Another Neo-Attic relief (British Museum)
Another Neo-Attic relief (British Museum)

Neo-Attic or Atticizing is a sculptural style of the 2nd c. BCE onwards copying, adapting or closely following the style shown in reliefs and statues of the Classical (5th and 4th c. BCE) and Archaic (6th c. BCE) periods. It was produced by a number of Neo-Attic workshops at Athens which began to specialize in it, producing works for purchase by Roman connoisseurs.

This style designation was introduced by the German classical archaeologist and art historian Friedrich Hauser (1859-1917), in Die Neuattischen Reliefs (Stuttgart: Verlag von Konrad Wittwer, 1889). The corpus that Hauser called "Neo-Attic" consists of bas-reliefs molded on decorative vessels and plaques, employing a figural and drapery style that looked for its canon of "classic" models to late fifth and early fourth-century Athens and Attica. The Neo-Attic mode was an early manifestation of Neoclassicism, which demonstrates how self-conscious the later Hellenistic art world had become.