Athlete with a scraper (Apoxyomenos)

This athlete uses a cloth to clean the strigil (scraper) he once held in his missing right hand. A strigil is a curved metal tool that Greek and Roman athletes used to scrape dirt, sweat, and oil from their bodies. In showing the athlete tidying his strigil rather than scraping, this sculpture differs from a more widely known version of the subject. It is unclear which type more faithfully reproduces a celebrated bronze statue by the fourth-century-B.C. Greek sculptor Lysippos.