Callimachus

Callimachus, (flourished 5th century bce), Greek sculptor, perhaps an Athenian, reputed to have invented the Corinthian capital after witnessing acanthus leaves growing around a basket placed upon a young girl’s tomb.

Although no sculptures by Callimachus survive in the original, he was reported to have carved the golden lamp that burned perpetually in the Erechtheum (completed in 408). Callimachus was noted and criticized by his contemporaries for the overelaboration of draperies and other details in his sculptures. Viewed in this light, the elaborate carving that characterizes the Corinthian capital may well be his invention. Modern scholars have attributed to Callimachus the Venus Genetrix (or Aphrodite Genetrix), a Roman replica of which is in the Louvre. He has also been linked with a series of reliefs of dancing maenads, such as the Roman copy now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, which are notable for their sensuously modeled limbs set off by voluminous, rippling draperies.