Bust of Ganymed

This sculpture comes from the Alhambra, where it had been held since the 16th century. It was positioned in the Jardín de los Adarves where it remained until 1868 when it was transferred to the Arab palace and from there to the Archaeological and Ethnological Museum of Granada. It is the fragment of a life sized sculpture which originally must have been worked in two pieces, of which only the upper part (the upper body and head) has been preserved. The head is slightly inclined forwards, and is wearing a Phrygian cap, the earflaps of which are raised upwards and held back with a bow. The roots of the curly hair, parted in a split can also be seen. It falls back in ringlets to the shoulders. The torso, inclined to the left and resting on the left arm gives an accentuated sinuous movement to the axis of the body, in the style of statues by Praxiteles and his school. The figure is naked except for part of his chest which is covered with a light chlamys (short cloak fastened with a round fibula at the right shoulder). The anatomy of the body coincides with the youthfulness of his face. The piece from the Archaeological Museum of Granada is a Roman replica of a Greek original from the classical period, 4th century BC With respect to the iconography, it is believed that this ephebos is a representation of Ganymede, but it is not possible to definitively state this since some clear insignia are missing in the preserved part.