The main centre of production of classical sculpture shifted from Athens to Rome during the first century BCE, though the sculptors were usually keen to point out in their signatures that they were Athenians working overseas. The dominant of these sculptors was Pasiteles, and this work is by one of his pupils, Stephanos. The male figure in this group is identical to another sculpture in Rome signed by him.

Stephanos’s style derives influences from many earlier periods of Greek sculpture combined in one work. The shoulders are broad but the heads small; the poses are taut but the musculature soft