The Providence Athenæum

Between 450-440 BCE, the sculptor Phidias created a bronze image of Athena for the Acropolis, dedicated to the Athenian population of the Greek island of Lemnos. The Athena Lemnia was one of the Acropolis’s more significant monuments. The statue was eventually dismantled for the value of its material and is known only through fragmentary visual and literary evidence. In 1891, archaeologist Albert Furtwängler fastened a modern copy of the Palagi head of Athena onto the Dresden torso of Athena (he was convinced the Dresden sculpture was a Roman copy of the lost Athena Lemnia, and the Palagi head its missing piece). Thus, the present-day Athena Lemnia was born.

Furtwängler’s Athena Lemnia made its first American appearance in the 1905 catalogue of the Boston casting firm P. P. Caproni and Brother. Wheaton purchased its Athena Lemnia from the firm in 1913 for $75. It was loaned to the Athenæum in the summer of 2016.

Evans, R. Tripp. “All Hail, Athena Lemnia!” The Universal Penman, Fall 2016, pp. 7–9.