(b Athens, ?c. 400 BC; d Athens, c. 330 BC). Greek sculptor.

His career spanned the 370s to the 340s BC. He was the foremost Attic sculptor of the Late Classical period (see also GREECE, ANCIENT, §III, 2(iii)(c)), son (or possibly son-in-law or brother) and pupil of the sculptor KEPHISODOTOS and father of the sculptors Kephisodotos the younger and Timarchos (see §2 below). Praxiteles’ affluence is attested by his practice of fashioning models for statues without having to depend on commissions and by his expensive gifts to his favourite model, the courtesan Phryne. An exceptional amount of information is imparted by the ancient sources on his private life. His elevated social position may well be representative of the status of great artists in Classical Athens. He seems to have had some freedom in choosing his own subjects, of which the Eleusinian deities, Dionysos and his companions, Aphrodite, and Apollo with Artemis and Leto predominate. He produced cult and votive statues as well as private portraits for sanctuaries in Attica, Boiotia, the Peloponnese, Ephesos, Knidos and Kos. The lack of Macedonian commissions suggests that his career had ended before Philip II’s conquest of southern Greece in 338 BC. His statues were particularly admired by the Romans and many were removed to Rome. Praxiteles’ career is comparatively well documented in the literary sources. Although none of his original works survives, apart from the disputed Hermes (Olympia, Archaeol. Mus.), several can be reconstructed from Roman copies; some attributions go as far back as the 18th century. His lost works include the cult statues of Dionysos at Elis, Demeter, Kore and Iakchos in the Temple of Demeter in Athens, the cult statues of Apollo, Leto and Artemis in Mantinea and Megara, and of Trophonios in Lebadeia, the sculptures on the altar of Artemis in Ephesos and a group of Dionysos, Drunkenness and a Satyr in Athens.

• Praxiteles
  • Greece, ancient, §IV, 1(i)(a): Monumental sculpture: Free-standing
  • Greece, ancient, §IV, 1(ii)(a): Free-standing sculpture: Subject-matter
  • Greece, ancient, §IV, 1(v)(a): Monumental sculpture: Craftsmen and society
  • Greece, ancient, §IV, 2(iii)(c): Late Classical monumental sculpture
  • Greece, ancient, §IV, 2(iv)(a): Hellenistic monumental sculpture
  • Greece, ancient, §IV, 2(iv)(b): Early Hellenistic monumental sculpture
  • Tholos
  • attributions
    • Greece, ancient, §IV, 2(iii)(c): Late Classical monumental sculpture
    • Greece, ancient, §IV, 4(ii): Monumental sculpture: Major collections and exhibitions
    • Halikarnassos, §2(i): Mausoleum: Evidence of ancient sources
    • Olympia, §2(ii): Sculpture: Other works
    • Venus de Milo
    • Wyndham: (1) Charles Wyndham
  • collaboration
    • Nikias
  • copies
    • Forgery, §III: The importance of forgery
    • Herculaneum, §III: Sculpture
    • Knidos, §2: Sculpture
    • Niobe Group
    • Nude, §1: The Classical world
    • Rome, ancient, §IV, 2(vi): Sculpture: Hadrian
    • Rome, ancient, §IV, 3: Sculpture: Collections, museums and exhibitions
    • Tivoli, §2(ii): Hadrian’s Villa: Sculpture
  • forgeries by others
    • Forgery, §II, 1: Authentication techniques: Connoisseurship
  • methods
    • Encaustic painting, §2(i): Pre-Renaisssance
  • patrons and collectors
    • Este (i): (6) Isabella d’Este
    • Nys, Daniel
  • teachers
    • Kephisodotos
  • works
    • Athens, §II, 1(ii)(b): Acropolis: Non-architectural sculpture
    • Display of art, §III, 1: Sculpture, before c 1500
    • Erotic art, §I, 1: Ancient cultures
    • Exhibition, §1: Before c 1700
    • Greece, ancient, §IV, 1(iii)(e): Monumental sculptural materials: Marble
    • Greece, ancient, §IV, 2(iii)(c): Late Classical monumental sculpture
    • Greece, ancient, §VIII, 2(i)(d): Bronze statuettes and figurines: Classical
    • Greece, ancient, §XI, 1(ii)(a): Development of collections in Europe, after the mid-17th century
    • Knidos
    • Monopteros, §1: Greece and Rome
    • Pliny: (1) Pliny the elder, §2(v): Natural History: Book XXXVI: Marble