Later Kouros from Actium, back view

Later Kouros from Actium, detail of back: buttocks

Later Kouros from Actium, detail of back: hair and upper torso

Later Kouros from Actium, statue from right

Later Kouros from Actium, right profile

Later Kouros from Actium, detail of shoulders and upper torso

Collection: Paris, Musée du Louvre
Title: Later Kouros from Actium
Findspot: Found at Actium, Sanctuary of Apollo
Summary: Standing nude youth
Material: Marble
Sculpture Type: Free-standing statue: kouros
Style: High Archaic
Technique: In-the-round
Original or Copy: Original
Date: ca. 560 BC - ca. 550 BC
Dimensions:

H 0.995 m
Scale: Life-size
Region: Acarnania
Period: High Archaic

Subject Description:

The more stylistically advanced of the two kouroi from Actium, the torso exhibits well-modeled though simple forms. The front is delineated by a series of ridges and grooves: horizontal clavicles, a shallow but clear median line descending from the sternum to the navel and a distinctly marked arch separating the thorax from the abdomen. Four horizontal lines divide the abdomen above the navel. In the back the spine is indicated not only by a central vertical groove, but by parallel grooves on either side. The shoulder blades are distinctively marked as well, though are less noticeable since these lines abut the hair. The overall proportions are long and slender. The shoulders slope; the arms hang loosely at the sides but have been carefully separated along the torso from the arm pit to below the wrist. The hands are clenched. On the hips a soft ridge marks the iliac crest. The left leg is well advanced. The hair is massed softly over the shoulders, then gathered loosely behind with a double band of ribbon. Below the ribbon it falls neatly in a narrow spread almost to the middle of the neck. All the hair is carefully rendered in a beaded style. A bronze statuette from Argos exhibits a similar coiffure (AuKGP 1986, pl. 71).

Like the kouroi from Sounion and the Ptoon Sanctuary in Boeotia, the Actium youths are closely linked with Apollo since they apparently come from his sanctuary. The location of the remains fit the description of Strabo (Strab. 7.325), who sites the sanctuary on top of a hill.

Form & Style:

Because the Sanctuary of Apollo at Actium belongs to a territory said to have been founded by Corinth (Thuc. 1.29.3), Richter suggests that its early dedications may reflect a Corinthian sculptural style. She discusses the later Actium kouros alongside the kouros from Tenea, whose proximity to Corinth (a few miles) might suggest a similar stylistic heritage for it. She also notes, however, that dedications in sanctuaries need not be local in origin. The Actium kouroi do appear to share a common stylistic basis, despite the twenty-odd years by which Richter proposes to separate them. The emphatic use of ridges and grooves to delineate certain anatomical features, particularly the clavicles, shoulder blades and abdomen, is retained in the later Actium kouros despite its naturalistic development overall. On the other hand, the soft modeling, so restrained that the pectoral muscles are barely indicated, is evident in the earlier statue as well. A more advanced state of development is shown by the appearance of certain anatomical features as the iliac crest, a softening of the previously exaggerated waist and the generally longer and slimmer proportions, especially of the torso proper.

Buschor and Wallenstein also suggest a Corinthian origin or influence. On the other hand, long ago Deonna attributed both Actium kouroi to Naxos. In his study of the Naxian school, Pedley also argues for such an attribution.

Date Description:

Richter places the later Actium kouros late within her Tenea-Volomandra Group, dated to the second quarter of the 6th century. She compares the earlier members of the group with the François vase in particular, which places the more developed members in the decade prior to the middle of the century.

Condition: Fragmentary

Condition Description:

Preserved from neck to middle of knees. Left arm broken just above elbow; analogous break where hand meets thigh. Heavily weathered. Modern hole at back now filled with plaster.

Material Description:

Probably Island marble (Richter)

Collection History:

Found by Champoiseau, French consul to Ioannina, in 1867 together with Louvre 688. Reportedly from the Temple of Apollo at Actium, of which traces were noted when the find was made.

Sources Used:

AuKGP 1986, 176f. (Krystalli-Botsi); Pedley 1976, 33); Richter 1970b, no. 74; Charbonneaux 1963, 4; Buschor 1950, 40f.

Other Bibliography:

Wallenstein 1971, 55, 128; Deonna 1909, no. 2.