person
Praxiteles
also: Praxitele
Praxiteles of Athens (active mid-4th century BC), the most famous of late-Classical sculptors and master of the new ideal of softened beauty in marble. His Cupid in the shrine of Heius at Messana — borrowed for a Roman aedileship by C. Claudius Pulcher — was the centerpiece of Verres's Sicilian plunder (Verr. 2.4.4-7, 60, 126).
Reading notes
- Against Verres, Second Hearing, Book IV §4 Praxiteles
Athenian sculptor of the 4th century BC, the canonical master of marble. The Cupid in Heius's shrine was attributed to him; Cicero is anxious to record the artist names because they form the heart of the Roman art-collector's connoisseurship.