Details

LOT 0107

Roman Bronze Strigil

2ND CENTURY B.C.-1ST CENTURY A.D.

7 1/2 in. (46 grams, 19 cm).

With C-section profile to the blade, rectangular handle with flare to the upper end, old notch to one edge, repaired.

Provenance

Ex collection Dr. Kuhn-Lucht, Germany.
with Kölner Munzkabinett, Cologne, before 2016.
Private European collection.

Footnotes

An emblematic instrument of the ancient sporting world, the strigil was mainly used by athletes as a scraper for personal hygiene. After training, which took place in the gymnasiums on tracks and arenas covered with sand, athletes and young people rubbed their skin with olive oil. They then used one of these distinctive scrapers remove the sand-oil mixture before washing in water. These actions are reproduced on famous statues (including Apoxyomenos, one of Lysippus’ masterpieces), on reliefs (such as funerary steles) as well as on countless vase paintings. In Attic and Italian red-figure imagery, the strigil is often depicted on perfume vases, like the aryballos and alabastron.