Further images
The young male is shown as an athlete, nude, and standing contrapposto with his weight on his right leg, his left bent at the knee. His body is idealised, with the softness of youth overlying perfect musculature, a strong iliac crest rises to a narrow waist, and defined pectorals animate his upper torso. His back is well-muscled, and he has pronounced buttocks. Both arms are lowered, though now broken away at the biceps and missing, and the remains of puntelli on both hips indicate where they would have been supported. The musculature of his neck shows that his head, now missing, was turned to his left. The left leg is broken below the knee, the right at mid-thigh. Scattered encrustation and rootilation to the surface, particularly around the pubic area, in other areas, notably the shoulder-blades, the original polish can be seen. The piece is broken and now repaired in a line running through the proper right thigh, running up through the left side of the groin, and at the back through the right buttock, and up to below the ribs. Some areas of fill to the break, more particularly above the left buttock, and three gouges across the shoulders at the back also filled and made good.
This torso is a Roman marble copy of a Greek bronze originally created by Polykleitos in 430-420 BC. The type is known as the Dresden Boy (or Dresdner Knabe), after the Roman copy now in Dresden, Germany.
Provenance
Armando Pacifici, Il Faunetto, Via Margutta, 90, Rome, Italy; as presumed by his notes on the back of an image from 1972
Private collection, Japan; acquired prior to 1973 likely from the above, thence by descent
On the back of an image of the torso, dated 1972, is a catalogue note by Dr German Hafner (1911-2008), from the University of Mainz, Germany
Exhibitions
'Greek and Etruscan Arts', Tokyo, Japan, 1973Literature
Compare the "Dresden Boy" in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Germany, inventory number Hm 088See another example of the type in Mette Moltesen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Catalogue Imperial Rome II Statues (Copenhagen, 2002), no.53
Publications
German Hafner, ed., Greek and Etruscan Arts, exhibition catalogue (Tokyo, 1973), no.87
Ernst Berger, 'Zum von Plinius (N. H. 34,55) überlieferten 'Nudus talo incessens' des Polyklet', Antike Kunst, Vol.21 (1978), p.55f, note 8
Ernst Berger, ed., Antike Kunstwerke aus der Sammlung Ludwig, Vol.3 (Mainz, 1990), p.144, Beilage 17C, 3-4; where the footnote to the images states "photographs provided to me by T. Fujita"
