Wounded Amazon (Sosikles type)

In imperial Rome, copying famous Greek statues in marble was a steady trade, and the copies went into villas, baths and public buildings. Few of the copyists signed. The man who made this one did. He cut his name, Sosikles, on the stone support at her side, and that signature has given the whole statue type its modern name. Two more signed works stand in this same hall, the pair of centaurs found at the emperor Hadrian's villa near Tivoli, carved by the Greek sculptors Aristeas and Papias.

What Sosikles copied was a bronze of the 5th century BC, now lost. The museum, like most scholars, links that original with Polykleitos, though some have argued for his contemporary Kresilas, and the question is still open. The statue is slightly larger than life. It belonged to the Albani collection and was completed by an 18th-century Roman restorer named Napolioni. Her head turns down to the right, towards the wound, and her raised right arm may once have gripped the spear she was leaning on.