Technè La science au service de l’histoire de l’art et de la préservation des biens culturels 45 | 2017 Bronzes grecs et romains : études récentes sur la statuaire antique The Bronze Athlete from Ephesos: Archaeological Background and Aspects of Conservation L’athlète en bronze d’Éphèse, contexte archéologique et éléments de restauration Georg A. Plattner Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/techne/1255 DOI: 10.4000/techne.1255 ISSN: 2534-5168 Publisher C2RMF Printed version Date of publication: 1 May 2017 Number of pages: 34-45 ISBN: 978-2-7118-6408-9 ISSN: 1254-7867 Electronic reference Georg A. Plattner, « The Bronze Athlete from Ephesos: Archaeological Background and Aspects of Conservation », Technè [Online], 45 | 2017, Online since 19 December 2019, connection on 10 December 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/techne/1255 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/ techne.1255 La revue Technè. La science au service de l’histoire de l’art et de la préservation des biens culturels est mise à disposition selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modification 4.0 International. Bronzes grecs et romains : études récentes sur la statuaire antique TECHNÈ n° 45, 2017 34 Fig. 1. Ephesian Athlete, bronze, H. 192 cm, second half of 1st cent. A.D., Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities, inv. no. VI 3168. © Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. Techne_n45_2.indd 34 23/11/2017 11:56 TECHNÈ n° 45, 2017 Bronzes grecs et romains : études récentes sur la statuaire antique Georg A. Plattner The Bronze Athlete from Ephesos: Archaeological Background and Aspects of Conservation L’athlète en bronze d’Éphèse, contexte archéologique et éléments de restauration Abstract. The Athlete from Ephesos, a Roman imperial copy of Résumé. La découverte de l’athlète d’Éphèse remonte aux premières a Greek statuary type from the 4th century B.C., was found at années de fouilles autrichiennes à Éphèse, alors que les recherches 35 the very end of the 19th century, in the first years of the Austrian se concentraient sur les principaux monuments impériaux. excavation in Ephesos, when research was concentrated on the L’effondrement de la toiture, provoquée par un tremblement major imperial monuments. In the palaestra of the Harbor Baths, de terre, avait brisé la statue installée dans un édicule au sein the statue was set up in an aedicula and was destroyed when de la palestre des thermes du port. an earthquake caused the collapse of the hall roof. Un accord entre le sultan ottoman Abdul Hamid II et l’empereur Due to an agreement between the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II d’Autriche François-Joseph Ier permet de transporter les fragments and the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I, the fragments could be à Vienne dans le cadre d’un don aux collections impériales. taken to Vienna as a gift to the emperor’s collections. In Vienna, À Vienne, Wilhelm Sturm se voit confier la restauration de la Wilhelm Sturm was commissioned with the restoration and statue. Il prend modèle sur la statue d’athlète conservée au musée conservation of the statue in 1897. The recomposition of the athlete des Offices, à Florence, en s’appuyant sur un rapprochement took as a model the marble athlete kept at the Uffizi, in Florence, typologique. once the similarity of the statuary type of the Apoxyomenos had Chacun des fragments fait l’objet d’un traitement physique been recognized. et chimique, avant d’être fixé sur des cordes de laiton. Les groupes The individual fragments were treated physically and chemically de fragments ainsi constitués sont montés sur des barres de fer and were fixed on brass strings. Then groups of fragments were afin de construire un squelette. Du ciment coulé dans les interstices mounted onto iron bars in order to build the “back bone”. consolide l’ensemble et comble les lacunes en surface. The entire statue was filled with cement in order to stabilize the Une réévaluation de l’état de la statue d’Éphèse, conduite par : techniques structure and to close the gaps in the surface. le laboratoire de conservation-restauration du Kunstorisches A reevaluation of the condition of the Ephesian statue in Museum de Vienne en collaboration avec le département de cooperation with the Conservation Science Department of the conservation-restauration des Antiquités du musée J. Paul Getty, Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Antiquities Conservation Malibu, Californie, souligne la stabilité étonnante de la Department of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California has restauration effectuée voilà plus de cent ans. shown the surprisingly good condition of the more than 100 year- Mots-clés. Éphèse, Vienne, apoxyomène, statues en bronze, old reconstruction. restauration, fouilles. Keywords. Ephesos, Vienna, Apoxyomenos, bronze sculpture, conservation, excavation. Austrian Excavations in Ephesos front of this marble hall in the south-west corner of the palaestra, 234 fragments of a life-size bronze sculpture were In the first years of the Austrian excavations in Ephesos, brought to light, a masterpiece of ancient art known since starting in 1895, the focus of the work was set on major public then as the Athlete or the “Schaber” from Ephesos (fig. 1)3. buildings as the Grand Theatre and the so called Harbour Due to an Irade, an edict of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, some Baths, a spacious bath-gymnasium-complex from the late 1st of the excavated finds could be chosen by the Austrian century A.D. (fig. 2-3)1. Already in the second year, in 1896, ambassador, Freiherr von Calice; these were sent to Vienna the Austrian mission unearthed the palaestra of these baths, as a gift of the Sultan to the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I4. discovering a splendid marble hall with several sculptures The Austrian Lloyd company brought the sculptures, archi- and minor elements of architectural decoration2. Right in tectural elements and small finds to Vienna in six transports riginaux, répliques et pastiches et répliques riginaux, O Dr. Georg A. Plattner, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities/Ephesos Museum, Vienna, Austria et datation des grands bronzesd'élaboration grecs et romains ([email protected]). I· I· Techne_n45_2.indd 35 23/11/2017 11:56 Bronzes grecs et romains : études récentes sur la statuaire antique TECHNÈ n° 45, 2017 36 Fig. 2. Ephesos, Harbour Baths around 1900, seen from north-east, in the background the Great Theatre. © Austrian Archaeological Institute. until 1906. From 1907 onwards, a new law concerning the legal framework of preservation of antiquities, promoted by Osman Hamdi Bey, founder of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, prohibited to take any archaeological heritage abroad. Today, most of the finds from Ephesos brought to Vienna are on display in the Ephesos Museum, which opened in 1978 in the former imperial palace of the Habsburg house in Vienna5. The bronze athlete and its early conservation As early as 1897, the fragments of the bronze athlete came to Vienna (fig. 4)6. The sculptor Wilhelm Sturm Jr. was commissioned to reconstruct the heavily damaged statue which he did in the first half of the year 1897. Later on, in 1901, he was appointed as conservator of the Antiquities Collection. Some passages of his report are cited in Benndorf’s publication7, mentioning that several fragments had to undergo a serious treatment of heating and annealing, Fig. 3. Ephesos, overview plan, marked in red: find spot of the statue cleaning the surface with dilute hydrochloric acid and in the Harbour Baths. © Austrian Archaeological Institute. reshaping. The single fragments were arranged in groups Techne_n45_2.indd 36 23/11/2017 11:56 Georg A. Plattner The Bronze Athlete from Ephesos: Archaeological Background and Aspects of Conservation and fixed to brass strings with screws; an invoice from Sturm kept in the Museum’s archive mentions no less than 1 800 brass screws used in the conservation project! The single groups were mounted onto a “skeleton” consisting of three square iron bars (fig. 5). To close the gaps in the surface caused by missing fragments and to stabilize the entire construction, Sturm decided to fill the hollow statue with a special cement up to the level of the neck8. The visible surface of the cement was then modelled and painted, and the original bronze surface treated with wax and partly, presumably, given an artificial patina. Once restored, the statue went immediately on display in the first exhibition of “Fundstücke aus Ephesos” in the Theseus Temple in Vienna9. This temple is a reduced copy of the “Theseion” (Hephaistieion) in Athens, built by Pietro di 37 Nobile in Vienna, in the years 1819-1823, to house the famous sculpture Theseus fighting the Minotaur from Antonio Canova. After transferring this sculpture to the main staircase of the Fig. 4. The Athlete from Ephesos, head and shoulders before Fig. 5. Restoration of the statue by Wilhelm Sturm, 1897-1898. restoration. © Austrian Archaeological Institute. © Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. Techne_n45_2.indd 37 23/11/2017 11:56 Bronzes grecs et romains : études récentes sur la statuaire antique TECHNÈ n° 45, 2017 38 Fig. 6. Exhibition of finds from Ephesos in the “Theseus Tempel” in Vienna, 1901. © Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. Kunsthistorisches Museum in the 1880ies, the temporary at the Uffizi in Florence11. Today, this athlete is on display in exhibition of the first finds from the new excavation abroad the Galleria degli Uffizi with modern arms added, holding a was on display in this temple and was received with high jug in his hands. A plaster cast of this sculpture was interest (fig. 6). commissioned and Wilhelm Sturm used it as a model for Very soon, it became clear that the humid environment reshaping the Ephesian Athlete12. in the temple, also caused by the spacious substructures, did Nevertheless, it was not possible to determine the precise severe harm to the bronze sculpture, which was removed only arm and leg position as well as the position of every single 10 years later.