Marble Relief of a Horseman in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sept. 2007

Marble relief of a horseman
Greek, 1st century BC

Accession # 07.286.111

This relief with a pacing horse with a nude rider is a tour de force of almost excessively sensitive surface texture and exaggerated anatomical detail. Decorative showiness takes precedence over organic unity, in a style often found in classicizing works of the first century BC. This work may copy one that was well-known in antiquity, for two others are preserved that show an almost identical horseman followed by another rider on a horse with the same pacing gait.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.