This extraordinarily fine analysis of Greek art covers the period from 1650 B.C. to 850 A.D. As an important revaluation of the subject, this volume demonstrates convincingly that the most famous artists of ancient Greece, like Pheidias, were primarily celebrated not as sculptors, but as workers in gold and ivory, or as chasers and engravers. The author's survey is supplemented by over two hundred exciting illustrations of coins, gems, bronzes, sculpture and painting. Most of these objects have never before been reproduced.
Editorial Review(s)
"The basis of the book is learned and profound and it contains the result of a great deal of original research. No one who was not intimately familiar with every facet and detail of Greek art could have written it. And in its short compass it contains a vast amount of important information and profound thought." --Times (London) Literary Supplement
About the Author
Dr. Charles Theodore Seltman (1886-1957) was an English art historian and writer, particularly in the area of numismatics. Born in Paddington, London, England on 4 August 1886 to Ernest John Seltman and Barbara Smith Watson from Edinburgh, Scotland, he spent a formative period of his childhood in South Italy, where the ruins of Pompeii were often his secluded playground.
He was educated at Berkhamsted School and, during World War I, served in the Suffolk Regiment in France. He married Isabel May Griffiths Dane (1893-1935), niece of Sir Louis Dane in 1917, and in 1918 was accepted into Cambridge University, where he specialized in archaeology. He was awarded the medal of the Royal Numismatic Society in 1945. He was also a Fellow (and Librarian) of Queens’ College, Cambridge and a University Lecturer in Classics, and was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Literature (Litt.D.).
He was a special editor of The Cambridge Ancient History, and has written much on Greek art and archæology. He was Director of the Exhibitions of Greek Art held at the Royal Academy in London in 1942 and 1946.
His written works include: The Temple Coins of Olympia, Greece (1921); Eros: In Early Attic Legend & Art (1923); Athens, Its History & Coinage Before the Persian Invasion (1924); Masterpieces of Greek Coinage (1946); Approach to Greek Art (1948); Greek Coins (1955); Women in Antiquity (1956); and Riot in Ephesus: Writings on the Heritage of Greece (1958). He was Director of the Exhibitions of Greek Art held at the Royal Academy in London in 1942 and 1946.
Seltman died on 28 June 1957, in Cambridge, and was cremated in Cambridge Crematorium on 1 July 1957. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were scattered in the Mediterranean Sea near Majorca, Spain.
