3-044-390 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Votive Relief (The Cottenham Relief), about 500 BC. Relief with a Youth Restraining a Horse. Additional Info: 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. 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.