1833 (original number) and 8-5116 (previous museum number (recataloged from))
Accession number:
Acc.193
Description:
Cast of Grüttner’s model of the W pediment of the temple of Zeus at Olympia. After the mutilated, but numerically complete, original marbles of Olympia. Berlin Museum of Casts. There are 21 heroic figures in each gable. The central one of each reaches colossal proportions. There was a lost, continuous plinth under the feet of the statues. There are consequently no statue tracks like those of Parthenon and “Theseum” pediments. The statues are all of Parian marble except the old women of the W gable. They are restoration made necessary by the fall of cornice blocks. Ernst Curtins contended that the old women of Pentelic stone were the interpolation of a later age. He simplifies the composition to the 19 figures by omitting them, and the E pediment, also, to the 19 figures by omitting the detached fourth horses of both quadrigas. But crowding, not sparse grouping, is the rule of Greek pictorial and semipictorial compositions. With a suitable coloring, its excess disappears. From his miniature restoration, based on suggestions of Professor Treu, since revised and modified by Treu. The model was prepared for the Olympia exhibit in the Berlin Camposanto. After the original marbles found at Olympia.
Donor:
Alfred Emerson
Collection place:
Gipsformerei, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany