The Armento Rider is an ancient bronze sculpture of a rider and a horse that was originally found in the town of
Armento
Armento ( Lucano: ) is a town and '' comune'' in the province of Potenza, in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata. The Armento Rider was found in the vicinity of Armento and is now in the British Museum. The Kritonios Crown, a 4th-century BC ...
in southern Italy. Now part of the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
's collection, it is considered one of the oldest works of art from Western Greece or
Magna Graecia
Magna Graecia (, ; , , grc, Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς, ', it, Magna Grecia) was the name given by the Romans to the coastal areas of Southern Italy in the present-day Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania and Sicily; the ...
.
Description
The Armento Rider is a diminutive statue of a Greek warrior wearing a
corinthian helmet
The Corinthian helmet originated in ancient Greece and took its name from the city-state of Corinth. It was a helmet made of bronze which in its later styles covered the entire head and neck, with slits for the eyes and mouth. A large curved pr ...
who bestrides a horse with a long
mane and elongated body. Solid cast in bronze in two separate pieces and made about 560-550 BC, it is one of the earliest bronzes to be produced in the
ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...
world. The rider is shown beardless wearing a short belted
chiton
Chitons () are marine molluscs of varying size in the class Polyplacophora (), formerly known as Amphineura. About 940 extant and 430 fossil species are recognized.
They are also sometimes known as gumboots or sea cradles or coat-of-mail she ...
and once used to hold a spear and reins for the horse.
Provenance
The bronze sculpture originally belonged to the Hungarian collector Gábor Fejérváry, who purchased it in
Naples
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adm ...
in 1833. After passing through several collections, it was eventually acquired by the British Museum in 1904.
British Museum collection
/ref> When first discovered the statue was wrongly attributed to the settlement of Grumentum, although recent research has shown that it originated from Armento, an ancient Greek site from the region of Basilicata
it, Lucano (man) it, Lucana (woman)
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...
, southern Italy.
References
{{Reflist
Further reading
*L. Burn, The British Museum book of Greece (London, The British Museum Press, 1991)
*C. Rolley, Greek bronzes (London, Sotheby's Publications / Chesterman Publications, 1986)
*H. B. Walters: British Museum. Select bronzes, Greek, Roman, and Etruscan, in the Departments of Antiquities, London 1915
Ancient Greek and Roman sculptures in the British Museum
Statues
Bronze sculptures in the United Kingdom
Archaeological discoveries in Italy