Athena Lemnia

The Statue of Athena Lemnia
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Title

Athena Lemnia or Lemnian Athena.

Subject

The Goddess is wearing an unusual cross-slung aegis, decorated with a head of Gorgon. Without shield, bare-headed, holding her helmet out in her right hand, and with her left grasping her spear near the top.

Function

The bronze original is often now taken as the "Lemnian Athena" made by Phidias for Athenians living on the island of Lemnos to dedicate on the Acropolis of Athens.

Date

The two marble copies (head and body) are Roman and the original bronze was from about 450-440 BCE. Meiggs: sometime between 451 and 447 BCE.

Artist

The "Lemnian Athena" was made by Phidias according to Pausanias 1.28.2.

Context

Athenian Acropolis, ca. 450-440 BCE. Possibly somewhere near the Propylaea and the Athena Promachus. Palagia: inside the east porch of the Propylaea.

Identification

Furtwängler's identification of the Lemnia (Work no. 7) with two statues in Dresden and the Palagi head in Bologna (Furtwängler 1895/1964, 4-26; cf. Stewart 1990, figs. 313-14) was based upon gem-engravings and a combination of testimonia, particularly Pausanias' and Lucian's remarks on her beauty, and by their resemblance to a passage of Himerios:

• Pausanias 1.28.2:
  [On the Acropolis] there are also two other dedications, a statue of Pericles, son of Xanthippos, and the most worth seeing of the works of Phidias, the statue of Athena called the Lemnian after those who dedicated it.
• Lucian, Imagines 4 and 6:
  (4) Lykinos: "Of all the works of Phidias, which one do you praise most highly?"
  Polystratos: "Which if not the Lemnia, on which he thought fit to inscribe his name? Or the Amazon leaning on her spear?
  ...
  (6) From the Knidia the sculptor [of Panthea] will take only the head, ... allowing the hair, forehead, and that lovely brow-line to remain just as Praxiteles made them, and the liquid yet clear and winsome gaze of the eyes shall stay as Praxiteles conceived it. But he will take the curve of the cheeks and the fore part of the face from Alkamenes' [Aphrodite] in the Gardens, plus her hands, graceful wrists, and supple, tapering fingers. But the facial contour, its softness, and her well-proportioned nose will be supplied by the Lemnian Athena of Phidias, who will also furnish the meeting of the lips and the neck, taken from the Amazon."
• Himerios, Oratio 68.4 (Colonna):
  Phidias did not always make images of Zeus, nor did he always cast Athena armed into bronze, but turned his art to the other gods and adorned the Maiden's cheeks with a rosy blush, so that in place of her helmet this should cover the goddess's beauty.

Against this, Hartswick 1983 has shown that the Palagi head (Rome 62.69; Stewart 1990, fig. 314) cannot have come from Dresden statue B, that the gems could be post-antique, and that the sources are impossibly vague; his further conclusions, that the head of Dresden A is alien and the entire Palagi type is Hadrianic are, however, unwarranted; cf. Palagia 1987. So while the type remains intact and looks Phidian, Furtwängler's further hypotheses concerning its identity and date (451-448) remain unproven.

Original/Copy

This sculpture is a pastiche of two Roman marbles, one for the head and the other for the body, after a Greek bronze original.

Collection

Staatliche Museum, Albertinum, Dresden.

Other Copies

Two other Roman copies of this same head, are known:

• The Bologna head, also known as the Palagi head, in the Archaeological Museum of Bologna, Italy.
• The "Testa dell'Atena Lemnia", from the Baia Museo archeologico dei Campi Flegrei, Pozzuoli, Italy.

Other Casts

Several other Casts of this size, and reduced copies, are known.

• The painted plaster cast at the William J. Battle collection of plaster casts, Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas, Austin.
• The Bryn Mawr's plaster Athena at the Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia.
• The Athena Lemnia cast at the Beazley Archive in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. A better view of this cast.
• The cast of Athena Lemnia's head at the Beazley Archive in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
• The cast of Athena Lemnia's head at the Archaeological Sciences Department in the University of Pisa, Italy.
• The cast of Athena Lemnia at the Gallery of Plaster Casts in the Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat, Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany.
• The cast of Athena Lemnia and aegis at the Royal Cast Collection, Copenhagen.
• The cast of Athena Lemnia at the Cast Gallery, Museum of Classical Archaeology, University of Cambridge
• The cast of Athena Lemnia at the Gipsmuseum, Institut fuer Archaeologie, Universitaet Graz
• The cast of Athena Lemnia at the Antikmuseet, Institut for klassisk Arkæologi, Aarhus Universitet
• The cast of Athena Lemnia at the Wellesley College, Boston

Gallery

Full front	Full front left	Full left
Full front right	Full right	Torso front
Torso right	Head front	Head front left
Head front right	Face	Bologna head
Campi Flegrei	Ashmolean	Boston 95.43
Berlin Stamnos	Rec. front	Rec. left
Rec. right	Blanton full	Blanton head

Tourist Information

The sculpture and its reconstruction are exposed in the main sculpture hall of the Albertinum, Dresden, Germany.
The Albertinum is in the historic center of Dresden, on the Neumarkt near the ruins of Frauenkirche.

Other Views

• Pictures of Athena: Athena Lemnia head from Bologna, front view.
• Pictures of Athena: Athena Lemnia head from Bologna, front view.
• Pictures of Athena: Athena Lemnia head from Bologna, left view.

Links:

• Blanton Museum of Art: Atena Lemnia.
• Perseus Project: See under Andrew Stewart, One Hundred Greek Sculptors: Their Careers and Extant Works: The Sculptors: The Early and High Classic Periods II: Pheidias.
• Bryn Mawr's Athena: "a biography".
• Staatliche Kunstsammlungen: Skulpturensammlung & Muenzkabinett Albertinum.
• Abguss-Sammlung antiker Plastik: Cast of Athena Lemnia head from Bologna.
• L'Encyclopédie de L'Agora: L'Athéna Lemnia par Henri Lechat.

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