Lysippus poses his subject in a true contrapposto, with an arm outstretched to create a sense of movement and interest from a range of viewing angles.

[7] A classicising version in the neo-Attic style in the Medici collections at the Uffizi had led earlier scholars to posit a classical fifth-century original, before the bronze was unearthed at Ephesus.

[8] A substantially complete bronze Apoxyomenos of this model, who strigilates his left hand, held close to his thigh, was discovered by René Wouten from the northern Adriatic Sea between two islets, Vele Orjule and Kozjak, near Lošinj in Croatia, in 1996.

It shares with the Ephesus bronze "the almost portrait-like individuality of the face, by no means a 'classical' type", with its broad, fleshy jaw and short chin and "hair made rough and unruly by sweat and dust".

[11] Another refined bronze head of an Apoxyomenos of this type (now in the Kimball Art Museum)[12] had found its way into the collection of Bernardo Nani in Venice in the early eighteenth century.