Cast of eponymous hero/magistrate from East frieze of Parthenon (figure 46 of Slab VI)

From: Parthenon, Athens

RA Collection: Art

The cast is of a single figure (46), an older man talking and leaning on a stick, from slab VI of the east frieze of the Parthenon. He probably represents an eponymous hero (one of ten after whom the tribes of Attica were named) or a magistrate.

This portion of the original slab is now in the British Museum which acquired it from Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin in 1816. However, at some point betwen 1787 and 1800 the original block was sawn in half directly through this figure who was deliberately chiselled off. The Royal Academy cast reproduces the figure as known from a mould made between 1786 and 1792 by the French vice-consul and antiquarian Louis-Francois-Sebastien Fauvel.