Statue of a Young Man or Boy

12 Statue of a Young Man or Boy (Kouros) The right arm from the middle of the upper arm, the left forearm, and the legs from just above the knees are missing. A break through the waist has been mended. This small statue has been called "Sikel" sculpture as a way of explaining the awkward style and carving. The face has a strong Archaic smile with a thick lower lip. Something of this regional identification may have been conditioned by the alleged attribution of this and the following statue to inland Sicily. Material and style might better associate them with the art of the Etruscans around 500 BC, a precise date being difficult to determine because of delayed uses of current late Archaic Greek models by the sculptors of Vulci and surrounding areas. Generally speaking, were this statue to have been fashioned in Southern Italy or Sicily, as in the majority of surviving examples, it would have been carved in imported Greek marble or fashioned in terracotta. The kouros from Megara Hyblaea in Geneva was worked from marble quarried on the island of Chios (Schefold, Cahn, 1960, pp. 213-214, no. 234b, dated around 490 BC). The earlier, more famous torso from the same region, in the Museo Nazionale, Syracuse, was carved from Parian marble and has a strong resemblance to the statue discussed in the following entry (Schefold, Cahn, 1960, pp. 146, 173, no. 111a). Cornelius Vermeule and Amy Brauer