Cresilas - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

CRESILAS, a Cretan sculptor of Cydonia. He was a contemporary of Pheidias, and one of the sculptors who vied in producing statues of amazons at Ephesus (see Greek Art) about 450 B.C. As his amazon was wounded (volnerata; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxiv. 75), we may safely identify it with the figure, of which several copies are extant, who is carefully removing her blood-stained garment from a wound under the right breast. Another work of Cresilas of which copies survive is the portrait of Pericles, the earliest Greek portrait which has been with certainty identified, and which fully confirms the statement of ancient critics that Cresilas was an artist who idealized and added nobility to men of noble type. An extant portrait of Anacreon is also derived from Cresilas.