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Some heads and other parts of classical sculptures
An acrolith is a composite sculpture made of stone and other materials, as in the case of a figure whose torso is made of wood, while the head, hands, and feet are made of marble. The wood was concealed either by drapery or by gilding; only the marble parts were exposed to view. This type of statuary was common and widespread in Classical antiquity.This charming and sensual leg certainly belongs to a sculpture made using the acrolith technique. This technique, already employed in the 5th century BC, was focused on the unclothed parts of the sculpture, which were made using a material more valuable than the one used for the rest of the work and achieved the peak of its expression in the sculptures of Phidias, such as the Zeus of Olympia or the Athena in the Parthenon. Carved in Parian marble, our leg was the right leg of a life-size or slightly larger than life-size figure. The leg has soft surfaces that suggest that the statue had an uncertain static arrangement: the figure was supported by the left leg, while the right leg -the one in question here – only just touched the ground with the tip of a toe. Half way up the thigh, the leg would have fitted into a figure, most probably of a young goddess or of a satyr.
The remains of an acrolith of Constantine (c312) in the courtyard of the Palazzo dei Conservatori. It once stood 12 metres high in the Basilica of Massenzio in Roman Forum.
"Arm, head and foot of a colossal acrolith of a goddess" 102 BC from the Temple of Fortuna Huiusce Diei. The head measures 1.46 meters (4.80 feet)
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Colossal "Head of Hercules" in Pentelic marble by Polykles in the second century BC, part of an acrolith built by Scipio after the conquest of Carthage in 146 BC. An acrolith was a statue in which the trunk of the figure was made of wood, and the head, hands, and feet were made of marble. The wood was concealed either by drapery or by gilding and only the marble parts were exposed to view
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The imposing Ingres Minerva stood in the gardens of the Villa Medici in Rome when the French painter Ingres, then director of the Académie de France in Rome, decided to send it to France. It entered the Louvre in 1913 after spending several years at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The statue is one of a large series of Roman replicas inspired by a Greek original produced in the fifth century BC. The head and arms were added - as shown by the recesses for fitting probably aimed at imitating the acrolith technique of the original. The extremities of the body were carved separately in a different material.
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