Youth with Jumping Weights

c. AD 40–70

Youth with Jumping Weights, c. AD 40–70. Italy, Rome, mid-1st Century. Marble; overall: 84.5 x 39.1 cm (33 1/4 x 15 3/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund, and Anonymous Gift 1985.79 The hourglass-shaped jumping weights slung over his shoulder, together with the animal-skin punching bag on which he leans, characterize this youth as an athlete. The distinctive haircut, short with one long tress in back, may indicate a childhood vow, perhaps to be trimmed in a future ceremony. Several very similar sculptures exist in other collections, suggesting the existence of a single prototype, now lost. The lower right leg and foot of this sculpture do not survive, and have been reconstructed.