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Statuette of Alexander Ktistes, Founder of Alexandria
Unknown · 1st to 2nd century AD
A headless young man stands with his weight on one leg, a short cloak knotted on his chest and hanging down his back. Look at the cloak: it is scaly, fringed with snakes, and bears the face of the Gorgon Medusa. This is the aegis, the magic skin of Zeus and Athena, and only one mortal was shown wearing it: Alexander the Great, as founder, in Greek ktistes, of the city of Alexandria. Beside his leg a tree trunk with a coiled snake serves as a support. The back is only roughly worked, so the statuette stood against a wall or in a niche. The head, the right arm, the left forearm and the left leg are lost.
Alexander founded the city in 331 BC and was buried there, and for centuries his image as founder, wearing the aegis and once holding a spear, stood in its streets and shrines. The type is known from several examples found in Egypt; this one, from the Delta, was made under the Roman empire, three or four hundred years after his death, when his cult was still alive. The Louvre bought it in 1912. Compare the smaller limestone version in the same room.
Did You Know? Alexander wears the aegis, the goat skin cloak of Zeus with the Gorgon's head, as a sign that he was the god's son.
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