Socrates rescues Alcibiades at the battle of Potidaea

On January 5, 1800, Antonio Canova was appointed academician of merit and, in compliance to the statutory dispositions, the following year he made the gift of this bas-relief, representing Socrates rescues Alcibiades at the battle of Potidaea.Canova chose to represent the episode over a flat, nondescript background, free of any naturalistic element, in a freeze-like composition where the figures of the combatants form two facing groups, leaving at the centre a void cut through by Socrates’ arm reaching out in a gesture of defence of his wounded fellow.