( fl second half of the 5th century BC). Greek sculptor. Almost nothing is known of his life. He probably came from Corinth since, according to Vitruvius (On Architecture IV.i.9–10), Kallimachos invented the Corinthian capital (presumably before its earliest known use—in uncanonical form—at BASSAI). His technical abilities were also displayed in the golden lamp (late 5th century BC) he made for the Erechtheion in Athens, which burnt for a year without refilling and had a chimney in the shape of a palm (Pausanias: Guide to Greece I.xxvi.6), i.e. a hollow column with an Aeolic ‘reed’ capital, rare before the Hellenistic period (323–31 BC). Kallimachos’ technical punctiliousness may be the reason for his ancient nickname, katatexitechnos (‘he who pines away because of art’; Vitruvius IV.i.10), given to him, according to Vitruvius, because of the ‘subtlety’ of his work in marble. His care in drilling the stone led Pausanias to use a play on words, calling him kakizotechnos (‘he who spoils art’; I.xxvi.7). Both nicknames occur in some manuscripts of Pliny the elder (Natural History XXXIV.xix.92), who implied that Kallimachos destroyed any grace in his work by the very pains that he took over it, referring specifically to his Lakonian Dancers. There may be echoes of this group (probably six girls wearing short chitons) in neo-Attic reliefs (e.g. Berlin, Pergamon-mus., see Blümel, no. K 184-5). Another group attributed to Kallimachos, six ecstatic Maenads, is preserved in numerous copies (e.g. Rome, Mus. Conserv.). They wear floor-length drapery skin-tight in places, of thin material that allows the bodies to appear as if nude; this style of drapery was the basis for the attribution to Kallimachos of the original of the Fréjus Aphrodite (Paris, Louvre; see GREECE, ANCIENT, §IV, 2(iii)(b) and fig. 59). The structure of this figure and the emphasis of the articulation of its limbs are wholly influenced by POLYKLEITOS and his followers. It has been called ‘a laterally reversed female Doryphoros in the spirit of the first generation of followers, wearing close-fitting drapery’, which is gathered in dense bunches of folds between the legs and at the side, as in the Landsdown–Sciarra Amazon of Polykleitos. The original of the Fréjus Aphrodite stood in Troizen, and Kallimachos seems to have been one of the followers of Polykleitos.

• Kallimachos
  • Greece, ancient, §IV, 2(iii)(b): High Classical monumental sculpture
  • attributions
    • Athens, §II, 1(ii)(a): Acropolis: Architectural sculpture
  • works
    • Athens, §II, 1(ii)(b): Acropolis: Non-architectural sculpture
    • Candelabrum
    • Greece, ancient, §II, 3(i): Architectural theorists