Wounded Amazon (Mattei type) – Sculpture in La Serena

This sculpture represents an Amazon, one of the warrior women of Greek mythology. Its identity is established by the distinctive morphology of the Mattei type: the short chiton slips from the left shoulder and exposes the left breast, the right arm rises above the head, the body's weight rests on the right leg, and the figure is accompanied by a quiver, a helmet and a tree-trunk support decorated with an Amazonian pelta.

These features distinguish the work from representations of Artemis or Diana. The name under which the sculpture was locally recorded, Diana Amazon, resulted from an incorrect iconographic classification and does not identify a recognised Classical sculptural type. The physical work is therefore identified as a Wounded Amazon of the Mattei type.

The Mattei type belongs to the group of standing Amazons connected by ancient tradition with the sanctuary of Artemis at Ephesus. Pliny the Elder recounts that Polykleitos, Pheidias, Kresilas, Cydon and Phradmon produced Amazon statues judged by the artists themselves. The lost Greek prototypes, probably made in bronze during the 5th century BC, are known through later Roman marble copies and their modern reproductions.

The prototype of the Mattei type is traditionally and most commonly attributed to Pheidias. This attribution remains historiographical rather than a signed or archaeologically demonstrated authorship. It does not affect the secure morphological identification of the La Serena figure as a Mattei-type Amazon.

The marble reproduction installed on Avenida Francisco de Aguirre preserves the defining composition despite damage to the left forearm. The exact original arrangement of the missing weapon and restored arms remains debated, so the surviving pose should not be used to assert a definitive reconstruction of a bow or spear.