"The remarkable works of art in the exhibition range from abstract simplicity of prehistoric figurines to breathtaking realism in the age of Alexander the Great. These works continued to inspire artists for hundreds of years, giving form to thought and shaping our own perceptions of ourselves," the Museum states on its web site.
The Croatian Apoxyomenos is one of the few preserved Greek statues that once decorated Greek shrines and cities. It represents an athlete, caught in the familiar act of scraping sweat and dust from his body with the small curved instrument that the Romans called a strigil.
The statue was recovered by divers in the sea near the islet of Vele Orjule near Losinj in the northern Adriatic in 1999.
The statue seems to date back to the 2nd or 1st centuries BC from a Greek foundry as a copy of its original created in 4th C BC.
Restoration on the statue began in October 2000 and was completed in 2006 and since then the statue has been exhibited in Croatia and abroad.
This Apoxyomenos sculpture was exhibited in the Louvre from 23 November 2012 to 25 February 2013.