Farnese Diadumenos

The Farnese Diadumenos is a 1st-century AD sculpture in the British Museum formerly in Farnese collection.

It is usually said that it is the late Roman marble copy of Polyclitus's Diadumenos sculpture. But, despite the same subject, it differs from the statue of Polykleitos.

It represents nude standing youth, tying a band or 'taenia' round his head. Arms were raised, but the left arm and shoulder are now lost. The hair is blurred due to weathering. The right leg has been altered and repaired. By the side of the statue are the remains of a palm-support. The statue was acquired from the Farnese Collection in 1864.

Some scientists say that Famese Diadoumenos actually should be associated with a Pheidian athlete of the same iconography called Anadoumenos (The ribbon-wearer) known from ancient sources.

According to Pausanius, Pheidian ivory relief with same name made c. 430 BC stood near Temple of Zeus, Olympia. The youth looked like Pantarkes, the Eleian boy thom Pheidias loved (he won the boys' wrestling competition in the 86th Olympiad: 436 BC). He said there was also round bronze statue with same name, also by Phidias, but it represented unknown athlete. Also in Olympia stood athlete Pantarkes' statue by unknown author.

With this statue of Phidias researchers (after Giovanni Becatti) associate two types of late copies:

"Nevertheless, as the temple image has now been dated in the 430s BC on external evidence - the finds in the workshop - Becatti's complicated attribution of both statue types to Pheidias and to two different athletes has to be rejected" is written in 1990s article.

The fact that only one mediocre example of Farnese Diadumenos exists has led P. Zanker to identify the statue as a Roman reproduction of a classical original from the early 1st century BC, inspired by Polykleitos' Diadoumenos (particularly the replica from Delos now in Athens).