Timotheus (sculptor)

{{short description|Greek sculptor of the 4th century BC}}

Image:Leda and Zeus (Swan).jpg)]]

Image:YUAGLedaByTimotheos.png

Timotheus ({{langx|el|Τιμόθεος}}; born in Epidaurus; died in Epidaurus, c. 340 BC) was a Greek sculptor of the 4th century BC, one of the rivals and contemporaries of Scopas of Paros, among the sculptors who worked for their own fame on the construction of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus between 353 and 350 BC.Pliny the Elder, Natural History 36.30-31. He was apparently the leading sculptor at the Temple of Asclepius at Epidaurus, c. 380 BC.{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Timotheus (sculptor)|display=Timotheus|volume=26|page=991}}

To him is attributedThe connection with Timotheus was first made by Franz Winter, (Mittheil. Arch. Athen. 1894:157-62 and pl. vi), on the basis of comparison of drapery of a Nereid or a Hygeia of Timotheus, just then being excavated at Epidaurus. (Adolf Michaelis, A Century of Archaeological Discoveries; 1908:313) a sculpture of Leda and the Swan in which the queen Leda of Sparta protected a swan from an eagle, on the basis of which a Roman marble copy in the Capitoline MuseumsInv. MC0302. is said to be "after Timotheus". The theme must have been popular, judging by the more than two dozen Roman marble copies that survive.Richard Hamann, "Original und Kopie" Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 15 (1949, pp. 135-156) p 153. The most famous version has been that in the Capitoline Museums in Rome, purchased by Pope Clement XIV from the heirs of Cardinal Alessandro Albani. A highly restored version is in the Museo del Prado, and an incomplete one is in the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut.