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Kouros (Boy)

CultureGreek
Dateca. 490 B.C.E.
MediumMarble
DimensionsOverall: 7 1/2 × 5 1/2 inches (19.05 × 13.97 cm)
Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust
Object number38-7
On View
On view
Gallery Location
  • 103
Collections
Gallery Label
This head belonged to a statue probably set up over a tomb, depicting a nude, striding youth. Made of marble, it must have been far more costly than the two terracotta sculptures here. The artist was one of the best of his time, combining in harmonious curves the lips, eyes and line of the curls.
Provenance

With Jacob Hirsch, New York, no. 691, by 1937-1938;

 

Purchased from Hirsch, through Harold Woodbury Parsons, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1938.

Published References

J. Sieveking, “Griechischer Jünglingskopf in Kansas City,” Pantheon 23 (1939): 36-38.

 

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2nd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 16, fig. 7.

 

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 3rd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1949), 18.

 

Paolo Enrico Arias, “Testa arcaica di Marzabotto,” Rivista dell’Istituto Nazionale di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte, n.s. 1 (1952): 245-46, fig. 5.

 

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 24.

 

Gisela M. Richter, Kouroi, Archaic Greek Youths: A Study of the Development of the Kouros Type in Greek Sculpture, 3rd ed. (New York: Phaidon, 1970), 127, 139, no. 164, figs. 485-88.

 

Gisela M. A. Richter, The Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks, 4th ed. (New Haven: Yale University press, 1970), 47, fig. 158.

 

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 34.

 

Charles Morgan, “A Kouros Head in Kansas City,” Hesperia 43 (1974): 467-69, plates 96-100.

 

Cornelius Vermeule, Greek and Roman Sculpture in America. Masterpieces in Public Collections in the United States and Canada (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 30-31, no. 6.

 

Ilse Kleemann, Frühe Bewegung: Untersuchungen zur archaischen Form bis zum Aufkommen der Ponderation in der griechischen Kunst, vol. 1, Grundzuge der Anlage von Bewegung sowie Praktischer Teil: Arbeitsweise und Hilfsmittel (Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 1984), 98-109, plates 40-47.           

 

Ellen R. Goheen, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988), 24-25, fig. 4.

 

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 117.

 

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 12, fig. 28.

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.


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