in the Medici collections at the Uffizi had led earlier scholars to posit a classical fifth-century original, before the bronze was unearthed at Ephesus. Croatian Apoxyomenos A substantially complete bronze Apoxyomenos of this model, who strigilates his left hand, held close to his thigh, was discovered by René Wouten from the northern Adriatic Sea between two islets, Vele Orjule and Kozjak, near Lošinj in Croatia, in 1996. Rene Wouten found the bronze statue fully covered in sponges and sea life. No parts of the statue were missing, though its head was disconnected from the body. 1.92m long, the statue is currently thought to be a Hellenistic copy of Lysippos’ Apoxyomenos from the second or first century BCE. Following its removal from the sea bed, the conservation and restoration works on the statue were entrusted to the Croatian Restoration Institute in Zagreb and lasted 6 years, after which the statue was first exhibited in Zagreb's Mimara Museum as the Croatian Apoxyomenos. as well as in some of the most important museums worldwide (Louvre, British Museum, J. Paul Getty Museum). It is now housed permanently in the Apoxyomenos Museum in Mali Lošinj (Lussinpiccolo), in an old palace restored on purpose. It shares with the Ephesus bronze "the almost portrait-like individuality of the face, by no means a 'classical' type", with its broad, fleshy jaw and short chin and "hair made rough and unruly by sweat and dust". An "excellent copy" of the head, known since the 19th century, is conserved in the Hermitage Museum. Another refined bronze head of an Apoxyomenos of this type (now in the Kimball Art Museum) had found its way into the collection of Bernardo Nani in Venice in the early eighteenth century. Other antiquities in Nani's collection had come from the Peloponnesus; the Kimball Art Museum suggests that the Nani head may have come from mainland Greece too. The head, like the Croatian Apoxyomenos, has lips that were originally veneered with copper and his eyes were inlaid in glass, stone, and copper. Another half-dozen fragments of the Croatian/Kimball type suggests that this was the more popular apoxyomenos type in Antiquity, and that the famous Vatican Apoxyomenos, which reverses the pose, may be a variant of Lysippus' original. Gallery Notes References Croatian Conservation Institute - "The Croatian Apoxyomenos" Digitizing the Lošinj Apoxyomenos "Lysippos' Apoxyomenon" Apoxomenos and the Role of Athletics in Ancient Greek Culture Apoxyomenos Encyclopaedia Romana Roman