Most ancient Greek bronze statues have not survived to the current era. They have been lost or melted down for their precious metal to be reused. Knowledge of these artworks comes mainly from Roman-era marble copies. A rare extant piece is a bronze statue of “Artemis and a Deer,” circa 1st century B.C. to A.D. 1st century.
Prized for its art historical value, the sculpture attracted media attention when it was controversially sold by its owner, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, now called Buffalo AKG Art Museum. Shattering the then-record for a sculpture at auction, it is now on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Artemis’s feet are shod in intricately laced sandals, and her wavy hair is parted in the middle and crowned by a diadem adorned with silver. This head ornament is crescent-shaped and decorated with engraved palmettes. Her eyes are also silvered. They are surprisingly lifelike with incised irises and recessed pupils. At Artemis’s left is a deer, sometimes referred to as a stag, whose height is 16 3/4 inches. A dog may have once been at her right.
She is depicted at the moment just after releasing her arrow; a bow would have originally been in her left hand. Customarily, statues of the goddess show her figure in motion. Here, she stands with her weight on her right leg. The left foot trails behind on pointed toes. The Met terms this portrayal as if she were “in an epiphany.”
Another departure from historic iconography is Artemis’s physical appearance. She is usually a fully grown young woman, but in this version she is depicted as an adolescent girl. Traditionally, the goddess is shown taking an arrow from her quiver or preparing to shoot, not after the completed action. Furthermore, she lets the deer stand peacefully beside her, instead of grabbing its antlers. A contrasting and quintessential version of the goddess is the Louvre’s “Artemis With a Doe,” known also as “Diana of Versailles.” In this artwork, she is shown in strident action. The Louvre’s version is a Roman marble copy, as the bronze original is now lost.
In 1953, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery acquired the statue. It remained in their collection until 2007, although it had not been shown since 1997. The institution’s core mission is to collect the art of its time, so its ancient holdings were an anomaly. On June 7, 2007, Sotheby’s held an auction of property from the gallery, including “Artemis and a Deer,” with proceeds of these deaccessioned works to go towards the acquisition of contemporary art. This decision was met with heated debate: Many art experts and enthusiasts decried the sale of the historic bronze Artemis, lamenting its removal from a public museum to a private collection.
Estimated to be worth between $5 million and $7 million, it brought $28.6 million and set a record for a sculpture at auction as well as an antiquity at auction. The winner was Giuseppe Eskenazi, a London dealer of Chinese art, who was bidding on behalf of a private European collector. Thankfully, the public can still see this artwork in person: The anonymous owner placed the sculpture on a long-term loan at The Met. It graces the Leon Levy and Shelby White Court, designed as a Roman peristyle—a pitch perfect environment for the beautiful “Artemis and a Deer.”
