From an old Italian collection there has come to Holland the bronze statuette here published, representing Poseidon as he is known to us from several marbles and bronzes and numerous Hellenistic and Roman coins. The god is shown leaning forward on his raised and bent right leg, his right forearm resting on his thigh, his left hand raised high. The statuette, which measures 17½ cm. in height, is in an excellent state of preservation; only the tops of the thumb and of three fingers of the right hand are missing; too vigorous cleaning has removed much of the patina; on the right side of the neck is a hole, probably a vent. The statuette is of very fine quality and excellent workmanship. In spite of its small size it is impressive and monumental, and strongly recalls a life-sized original; evidently this was a modelled, not a sculptured one; we have to think of a bronze statue. Coins of Demetrios Poliorketes, the figure on which shows exactly the same posture as our bronze, tell us that the right leg rested on a rock and the left hand held a trident.

The most famous of this well-known type is the Lateran statue, which has been much discussed as to the authorship of its original. Unfortunately this is rather a bad example of a Roman copy, made in a very classicist taste, probably in the first half of the second century A.D.; moreover, it has been much restored. Helbig tells us that nose, left arm, both legs up to the knee, ship, dolphin and plinth are restored, while parts of the hair and beard are new.