(c. 490–430 BC). Greek sculptor. He was the son of Charmides and pupil of Hegias; he became the foremost figure in an Attic school of artists that included Agorakritos, Alkamenes, Kolotes, Theokosmos, Panainos and Mys, and exercised a profound influence on contemporary and later Greek art. He acted as Athenian state artist under Kimon (476–463 BC) and Pericles (462–429 BC), but he also received commissions from allied states such as Plataea, and eventually from the great pan-Hellenic sanctuary of Olympia and nearby Elis. None of his original works survives, but some can be reconstructed from descriptions in ancient literary sources and from later copies. Pheidias has always been regarded as the Classical artist par excellence.

• Pheidias
  • Greece, ancient, §IV, 1(iii)(g): Monumental sculptural materials: Chryselephantine
  • Greece, ancient, §IV, 1(v): Monumental sculpture: Craftsmen and society
  • Greece, ancient, §IV, 1(v)(b): Monumental sculpture: Craftsmen and society
  • Greece, ancient, §IV, 2(iii)(a): Early Classical monumental sculpture
  • Greece, ancient, §IV, 2(iii)(b): High Classical monumental sculpture
  • Greece, ancient, §IV, 3(i): Monumental sculpture: Ancient theory and criticism
  • Greece, ancient, §VI, 3(i): Painting theory and criticism: 5th century BC
  • Pliny: (1) Pliny the elder, §2(v): Natural History: Book XXXVI: Marble
  • architecture
    • Athens, §II, 1(i)(b): Acropolis: Architecture, c 450–c 400 B
    • Athens, §II, 1(ii)(a): Acropolis: Architectural sculpture
    • Greece, ancient, §IV, 2(iii)(b): High Classical monumental sculpture
  • assistants
    • Greece, ancient, §IV, 1(i)(a): Monumental sculpture: Free-standing
  • attributions
    • Athens, §II, 1(ii)(b): Acropolis: Non-architectural sculpture
    • Athens, §II, 2(i)(a): Agora: Greek architecture
    • Eleusis
    • Ephesos, §I, 1(ii): Greek sculpture
    • Nude, §1: The Classical world
  • collaboration
    • Alkamenes
    • Panainos
    • Parrhasios
    • Theokosmos
  • competitions
    • Ionia
  • copies
    • Greece, ancient, §IV, 2(iv)(c): High Hellenistic monumental sculpture
    • Greece, ancient, §IV, 4(ii): Monumental sculpture: Major collections and exhibitions
    • Priene, §2: Sculpture
    • Rome, ancient, §IV, 2(vi): Sculpture: Hadrian
    • Statuette, §I: Greek and Roman
  • glass
    • Greece, ancient, §X, 5(ii): Cast and polished glass
  • patrons and collectors
    • Greece, ancient, §I, 4(ii): Patronage: Sculpture, painting and other arts
  • personal collection
    • Vase painters, §II: Kleophon Painter
  • pupils
    • Hegias
    • Kolotes
  • sculpture
    • Greece, ancient, §IV, 1(v)(a): Monumental sculpture: Craftsmen and society
    • Greece, ancient, §VIII, 2(i)(d): Bronze statuettes and figurines: Classical
    • Athena Parthenos
      • Cult statue
      • Display of art, §III, 1: Sculpture, before c 1500
      • Greece, ancient, §II, 1(i)(a): Religious architecture: Building types
      • Greece, ancient, §IV, 1(i)(b): Monumental sculpture: Architectural
      • Greece, ancient, §X, 6(ii): Ivory and bone: Composite works
      • Iktinos
      • Monument, public, §2: Antiquity
      • Pericles
      • Temple, §I, 4: Ancient Greece
    • Zeus statue
      • Chair, §1: Before c AD 500
      • Greece, ancient, §I, 2(ii): Religious imagery
      • Greece, ancient, §I, 2(iii): Religion: Manufacture of offerings
      • Olympia, §1(ii)(a): Archaic to Hellenistic architecture: Religious
      • Olympia, §2(i): Sculpture: From the Temple of Zeus
  • teachers
    • Ageladas
  • works
    • Chryselephantine
    • Quatremère de Quincy, Antoine