Votive Relief (The Cottenham Relief)

A male youth leans back to restrain a lively horse on this relief fragment, which preserves only the top left portion of the original scene. The relief's time-worn, damaged state gives only a hint of its former appearance. The surface of the relief has eroded, erasing many carved and painted details such as the horse's bridle. Three holes visible in the horse's mouth and the youth's hand undoubtedly originally served as anchor points for added bronze reins. Enough remains of the figure’s anatomy to indicate that he was nude.

Young men and their horses were a popular theme in Greek art. The horse was a symbol of prestige, wealth, and status, and so even modest reliefs depicting youths with the animal imparted a message of high social rank. This relief was probably set up in a sanctuary as a votive offering, perhaps to honor the victor of a horse race.

Discovered and dug up in 1911 by a farm laborer in Cottenham, near Cambridge, England, this relief is known as the Cottenham Relief. An antiquarian named Roger Gale lived in Cottenham in 1728, and this relief probably belonged to him. How it came to be lost or disposed of by him and then buried remains unknown.