The Armento Rider is an ancient bronze sculpture of a rider and a horse that was originally found in the town of Armento in southern Italy. Now part of the British Museum's collection, it is considered one of the oldest works of art from Western Greece or Magna Graecia.[ British Museum Highlights]
Description
The Armento Rider is a diminutive statue of a Greek warrior wearing a corinthian helmet who bestrides a horse with a long mane and elongated body. Solid cast in bronze in two separate pieces and made about 560-550 BC, it is one of the earliest bronzes to be produced in the
Ancient Greece world. The rider is shown beardless wearing a short belted chiton and once used to hold a spear and reins for the horse.
Provenance
The bronze sculpture originally belonged to the Hungarian collector Gábor Fejérváry, who purchased it in
Naples in 1833. After passing through several collections, it was eventually acquired by the British Museum in 1904.
[ British Museum collection] When first discovered the statue was wrongly attributed to the settlement of
Grumentum, although recent research has shown that it originated from Armento, an ancient Greek site from the region of
Basilicata, southern Italy.
Further reading
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L. Burn, The British Museum book of Greece (London, The British Museum Press, 1991)
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C. Rolley, Greek bronzes (London, Sotheby's Publications / Chesterman Publications, 1986)
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H. B. Walters: British Museum. Select bronzes, Greek, Roman, and Etruscan, in the Departments of Antiquities, London 1915
