The Moschophoros (Calf-Bearer)
About 570 BC
A bearded man strides forward with a young calf draped over his shoulders, holding its legs crossed against his chest in both hands. He smiles the wide, serene smile of early Greek sculpture and the calf, its head turned to us, seems perfectly content. The statue was a gift to Athena from a man named Rhombos, whose name survives on the base: he is bringing the animal to the goddess for sacrifice, and he has had himself carved in the act so that the offering would last forever. It is one of the oldest large marble statues found on the Acropolis and one of the earliest to show a human and an animal joined in a single composition.
The man is not naked, though he seems so at first. A thin cloak clings to his body so closely that only its edges, running down the front of the thighs, reveal it. The sculptor was clearly interested in the contrast between the calf's soft hide and the man's taut muscles, and in the elegant X formed by the animal's legs and the man's forearms. The eyes were once inlaid with coloured stone or glass paste, which is why they are now empty hollows, giving him a gaze that is both blank and oddly alive. Traces of red paint survive in the hair and beard.
The statue was found in 1864 on the Acropolis, buried in the deep fill where the Athenians had reverently laid the broken dedications after the Persians sacked the sanctuary in 480 BC. That burial is the reason so much archaic sculpture survives here at all: it was never reused as building stone. Look at the calf's face as you walk past. Its gentle expression is one of the most touching details in the whole museum, and it is carved by someone who had clearly watched a real animal being carried.
Did You Know? The dedicator's name, Rhombos, survives on the base, making him one of the first named private donors on the Acropolis.
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