Outdoor garden statue “The Youth of Marathon” by Praxiteles (reduction)

Along with Skopas and Lysippus, the Athenian Praxiteles is considered the most important sculptor of the Late Classical period. The artist surrounds his statues with a veil of serene contemplation, which lends the figures a strange detachment, while the viewer, precisely as a witness to this seclusion, is drawn into the sphere of influence of the artwork. The originals of his works have been lost and would have been irretrievably lost had the Romans not made replicas of them in antiquity. Then, however, a unique discovery shook posterity: Greek fishermen recovered from the sea near Marathon a statue of a youth of incomparable beauty, which can undoubtedly be attributed to Praxiteles.