History
The original sculpture known as the "Delphi Charioteer" was excavated in 1896 at the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, and it depicts a frontally-oriented life-size male youth believed to have been part of a large sculptural group including a chariot and horses, dedicated as a votive offering to the god on the occasion of a victory in a chariot race. Through his fixed stare, pronounced chin, and the heavy, regular folds of his garment, the Charioteer exemplifies the artistic style of the Early Classical or "Severe" period.
While the original and the cast are composed of different materials, the bronze original was made in a similar way to Battle’s bronze patinate cast of the Charioteer: both were cast in parts that later had to be fitted together. The lost wax casting technique, where molten metal is poured into a mold around a model with a detailed outer layer of wax, which melts away, over a clay core that is later removed, was used for the original sculpture. Given its scale, several molds were created for different sections and, once freed from their molds, the cast pieces were fused together with beads of molten bronze. In contrast to Battle’s solid plaster Charioteer, the lost wax technique left the bronze original hollow. The finishing stages for the original would have involved the addition of eyes with stone or ivory whites, colored irises, and relief eyelashes, as well as copper inlay on the lips and external fixtures like victory wreaths in gold or other multicolored metals. Even bronze statues were often polychrome works.
Acquired in 1908, Battle’s cast of the Charioteer is first documented in archival photographs taken at the Old Library (now Battle Hall) during the University Centennial Exhibition in 1936. At that point, it was furnished with two arms, even though only one of the arms of the original is preserved (another example of the 19th-century taste for completeness in figural representation). In 1972, the cast was among the 14 retrieved from storage at the Pickle Research Campus and painted white for an Art Department exhibition exploring the idea of the “copy” in art. Following this exhibition, the Charioteer landed in the foyer of the Architecture building, where it stood as a mascot for students who showed it affection through minor vandalism, including painting its toenails blue. When surveyed for conservation in the later 1970s, the Charioteer’s base was badly damaged, its had lost both arms, and the white paint covering it was identified as an oil-based variety. Such paint is difficult to remove from plaster, and it was recommended that the cast be painted once more, this time in a dark color that would mimic the original bronze patina. The restored cast went on display in 1980 to coincide with the gallery’s renaming as the Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery. Over the next 20 years, the Huntington Gallery’s Battle Cast display was extensively used in pedagogy and for figure sketching, thus contributing to the study of the Humanities at UT. Upon the opening of the new Blanton Museum of Art building in 2006, the Charioteer was set up in the second floor rotunda, where it stood with several casts demonstrating the stylistic development of ancient Greek art. Today, it resides in the Blanton’s Osborne Seminar Room.
