Athena

myminifactory

The head and arms were restored after the Farnese Athena at Naples (Arndt-Amelung 514-15). The other known statue of this type though different in details is the Hope Athena, which up to 1917 was at Deepdene in England in the same collection as Thorvaldsen's Jason (cf. Preyss in Arch. Jahrb. XXVII 1912 p. 88 seqq. pis. 9-11). Despite the differences, these two statues together with the other replicas preserved in the form of torsoes and heads, must go back to the same original. Athena, clad in a light, richly folded chiton and a heavier cloak, is wearing the aegide round her neck with a swarm of snakes, and on her head a helmet, finely rounded, flanked by cheek-pieces and with a sphinx and two griffins as ornament.  Her left hand resting on the lance, in her lowered right hand she probably held a sacrificial bowl. The left knee is bent and imparts life and movement to the drapery. In the Hope type the face is longish, oval, not unlike the Parthenos Athena (cf. No. 98); in the Farnese type the face is shorter and broader, more like the Barberini Hera and the Borghese Hera (see No. 247). The Glyptotek figure is a copy of early Roman Empiretime, less fresh in detail than the Hope Athena; whereas the cloak is skilfully rendered, especially on the right side, the folds of the chiton under the left arm are schematic and lifeless, and the same may be said of the stiff parallel folds across the right foot and the five symmetrical vertical bunches of folds of the chiton between the feet. In this mechanical treatment of drapery we have a characteristic example of the Augustaean “Empire Style”, distinguished and decorative, but having no fantasy or sparkle.