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Alcamenes or Alkamenes ((Ἀλκαμένης) 2nd half 5th century BC) was a Greek sculptor, said to have been a pupil of Pheidias, the most eminent in Athens after the departure of Pheidias for Olympia, but enigmatic in that none of the sculptures associated with his name in classical literature can be securely connected with existing copies.

He was noted for the delicacy and finish of his works, among which a Hephaestus and an Aphrodite "of the Gardens" (Αφροδίτη εν Κήποις) were conspicuous.

Whether he was born in Athens or in the Athenian colony on Lemnos, his career was largely in Athens.

Hermes Propylaios

Pausanias says (v. 10. 8) that he was the author of one of the pediments of the temple of Zeus at Olympia, but this seems a chronological and stylistic impossibility. At Pergamum there was discovered in 1903 a copy of the head of the Hermes "Propylaeus" of Alcamenes (Athenische Mittheilungen, 1904, p. 180). As, however, the deity is represented in an archaistic and conventional character, this copy cannot be relied on as giving us much information as to the usual style of Alcamenes, who was almost certainly a progressive and original artist.

Reference

Andrew Stewart, One hundred Greek Sculptors : Their Careers and Extant Works (on-line)

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.

Pausanias:

The sculptures in the front pediment are by Paeonius, who came from Mende in Thrace; those in the back pediment are by Alcamenes, a contemporary of Pheidias, ranking next after him for skill as a sculptor. What he carved on the pediment is the fight between the Lapithae and the Centaurs at the marriage of Peirithous. In the center of the pediment is Peirithous. On one side of him is Eurytion, who has seized the wife of Peirithous, with Caeneus bringing help to Peirithous, and on the other side is Theseus defending himself against the Centaurs with an axe. One Centaur has seized a maid, another a boy in the prime of youth. Alcamenes, I think, carved this scene, because he had learned from Homer's poem that Peirithous was a son of Zeus, and because he knew that Theseus was a great grandson of Pelops.

Pausanias

Procne of Alcamenes, Athens, Acropolis Museum, C. Praschniker, "Die Prokne-Gruppe"

There also are set up Timotheus the son of Conon and Conon himself; Procne too, who has already made up her mind about the boy, and Itys as well -a group dedicated by Alcamenes (Pausanias).

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