Bronze Statuette of a Seated Lion in the Getty Villa, July 2008

Bronze Statuette of a Seated Lion
Greek, made in Thessaly, 500-480 BC
Bronze

Inventory # 96.AC.81

Sitting upright and alert, this lion assumes a guardian pose. The flamelike locks of the mane and the symmetrically arranged whiskers show the love of ornamental pattern characteristic of Greek art of the Archaic period (700-480 BC). But the elongated, muscular body reflect's the artist's developing interest in a naturalistic depiction.

Text from the Getty Villa museum label.