Bronze Portrait of Alexander the Great

Stewart, T131 and T132: Plutarch, Moralia 335A-B and 360D: When Lysippos had finished his first Alexander with his face looking up towards the heavens (just as Alexander himself was accustomed to look, slightly inclining his neck to one side), someone not inappropriately inscribed the following epigram:    This statue seems to look at Zeus and say:    Take thou Olympos; me let earth obey! For this Alexander ordered that Lysippos alone should make his portraits. For only he, it seemed, brought out his real character in the bronze and gave form to his essential excellence (arete). The others, in their eagerness to imitate his crooked neck and melting, limpid eyes, failed to preserve his virile and leonine demeanor…. Lysippos the sculptor did well to find fault with Apelles the painter for painting Alexander with a thunderbolt in his hand; he himself represented Alexander with a spear, an attribute true and proper to him, which time would never rob of its glory.