Silanion ( Greek: Σιλανίων, gen. Σιλανίωνος) was the best-known of the Greek portrait-sculptors working during the fourth century BC. [1] Pliny gives his floruit as the 113th Olympiad, that is, around 328–325 BCE ( Natural History, 34.51), and records he had no famous teacher. His idealized portrait head of Plato was commissioned by Mithridates of Persia for the Academy of Athens, c. 370 BC. [2] Later copies of it and of an idealized portrait head of Sappho survive. Both are of simple ideal type, the Sappho not strictly a portrait, since Sappho (sixth century BC) lived before the age of portraiture. [3] The best copy of the Plato is in the Glyptothek of Munich (illustration). [4]
Silanion also produced a "portrait" of the poet Corinna. Other "portrait" heads by Silanion evoked mythic and legendary heroes. An Achilles mentioned by Pliny was later adapted to represent Ares, [5] and an equally idealized Theseus is mentioned by Plutarch.
Silanion wrote a treatise on proportions that is mentioned by Vitruvius (vii, introduction), but has otherwise been lost to the ages.
Silanion ( Greek: Σιλανίων, gen. Σιλανίωνος) was the best-known of the Greek portrait-sculptors working during the fourth century BC. [1] Pliny gives his floruit as the 113th Olympiad, that is, around 328–325 BCE ( Natural History, 34.51), and records he had no famous teacher. His idealized portrait head of Plato was commissioned by Mithridates of Persia for the Academy of Athens, c. 370 BC. [2] Later copies of it and of an idealized portrait head of Sappho survive. Both are of simple ideal type, the Sappho not strictly a portrait, since Sappho (sixth century BC) lived before the age of portraiture. [3] The best copy of the Plato is in the Glyptothek of Munich (illustration). [4]
Silanion also produced a "portrait" of the poet Corinna. Other "portrait" heads by Silanion evoked mythic and legendary heroes. An Achilles mentioned by Pliny was later adapted to represent Ares, [5] and an equally idealized Theseus is mentioned by Plutarch.
Silanion wrote a treatise on proportions that is mentioned by Vitruvius (vii, introduction), but has otherwise been lost to the ages.