drawing
- Museum number
- 2012,5001.596
- Description
-
Study of the head and shoulders of one of the fallen warriors from the east pediment of the Temple of Aphaia at Aegina
Graphite
- Production date
- 1833-1860
- Dimensions
-
Height: 229 millimetres
-
Width: 183 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- Samuel Pepys Cockerell (ed.), 'Travels in Southern Europe and the Levant, 1810-1817. The Journal of C. R. Cockerell, R.A.' (1903, Reprinted 1999), pp.50-58:
'We slept very well in the boat, and next morning reached Aegina. The port is very picturesque. We went on a t once from the town to the Temple of Jupiter, which stands at some distance above it; and having got together workmen to help us in turning stones, &c. we pitched our tents for ourselves, and took possession of a cave at the north-east angle of the platform on which the temple stands...On the platform was growing a crop of barley, but on the actual ruins and fallen fragments of the temple itself no great amount of vegetable earth had collected, so that without very much labour we were able to find and examine all the stones necessary for a complete architectural analysis and restoration. At the end of a few days we had learnt all we could with to know of the construction, from the stylobate to the tiles, and had done all we came to do.
But meanwhile a startling incident had occurred which wrought us all to the pitch of excitement. On the second day one of the excavators, working in the interior portico, struck on a piece of Parian marble which, as the building itself is of stone, arrested his attention. It turned out to be the head of a helmeted warrior, perfect in every feature. It lay with the face turned upwards, and as the features came out by degrees you can imagine nothing like the state of rapture and excitement to which we were wrought. Here was an altogether new interest, which set us to work with a will. Soon another head was turned up, then a leg and a foot, and finally, to make a long story short, we found under the fallen portions of the tympanum and the cornice of the eastern and western pediments no less than sixteen statues and thirteen heads, legs, arms, &c. (another account says seventeen and fragments of at least ten more), all in the highest preservation, not 3 feet below the surface of the ground. It seems incredible, considering the number of travellers who have visited the temple, that they should have remained so long undisturbed...Besides all this, which was outside our own real business, we had been taking measurements and making careful drawings of every part and arrangement of the architecture till every detail of the construction and, as far as we could fathom it, of the art of the building itself was clearly understood by us...'
Charles Robert Cockerell, 'The Temples of Jupiter Panhellenius at Aegina and of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae near Phigaleia in Arcadia', (London 1860).
C. A. Hutton, 'A Collection of Sketches by C. R. Cockerell, R. A.', JHS 29 (1909), pp. 53-59.
David Watkin, 'The Life and Work of C. R. Cockerell', (London 1974).
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1930
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 2012,5001.596