Colossal Left Foot
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Object Label
In this print, most likely designed to celebrate the arrival of the Year of the Tiger in 1878, Kyōsai depicts an artist’s studio with all the accoutrements of an accomplished painter, including ink, brushes, and rolls of paper. Kyōsai was celebrated for his depictions of animals, and in this print he showcases his skill with the depiction of a majestic tiger on a painted screen, an image within an image. He has cleverly rendered his signature as if it appears on the surface of the screen.
Caption
Roman. Colossal Left Foot, 1st–2nd century C.E.. Marble, 13 x 7 7/8 x 18 1/2 in. (33 x 20 x 47 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Robert B. Woodward Memorial Fund, 19.170. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 19.170_threequarter_left_PS2.jpg)
Gallery
Not on view
Gallery
Not on view
Culture
Title
Colossal Left Foot
Date
1st–2nd century C.E.
Period
Roman Period
Medium
Marble
Classification
Dimensions
13 x 7 7/8 x 18 1/2 in. (33 x 20 x 47 cm)
Credit Line
Robert B. Woodward Memorial Fund
Accession Number
19.170
Rights
Creative Commons-BY
You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this three-dimensional work in accordance with a Creative Commons license. Fair use, as understood under the United States Copyright Act, may also apply. Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online application form (charges apply). For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
Frequent Art Questions
What size shoe is the Colossal Left Foot?
The foot is actually from Serapis, a hybrid of Zeus and Osiris, among other Greek and Egyptian deities! The Hellenistic period in Egypt was marked by a blending of Egyptian and Greek cultures, where as throughout other regions the culture became far more homogenized. This blending can be seen even in the titles the Greek Kings took the title Pharaoh.Start with a shoe joke and then some awesome facts about the Greco-Roman cultural exchange!How can a foot represent strength when there is such a thing as an Achilles Heel?
In the case of this particular foot, it is associated with the god Serapis (identified by the style of the sandal) who would not have been understood as having the same weakness(es) as Achilles. Serapis was a composite deity based largely on the Greek Zeus and the Egyptian Amun as well as the Egyptian Osiris and incorporated elements of other Egyptian and Greco-Roman deities. The Mediterranean was an incredible melting pot as the Empires got larger and larger.Whose foot is this?
The foot belongs to Serapis, a fusion of the Egyptian gods Osiris and Apis and various Hellenistic deities, namely Zeus and Helios. This colossal left foot was intentionally made as just one body part; it's not a fragment of a larger sculpture.Rodin collected and surrounded himself with ancient artifacts like these, which I'm sure you can see reflected in his studies of disembodied heads and hands.He found symbolic and aesthetic inspiration in ancient sculptures that were missing arms or heads. He especially appreciated them as self-sufficient forms that did not require a narrative or context to be expressive.
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