Youth of Magdalensberg

It is known today primarily from a sixteenth-century cast now held at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (Inventory # VI 1), which until 1986 was mistakenly regarded as the original.

[2] The youth is the only ancient full-size bronze statue known from the Eastern Alpine region and therefore is of great significance in Austria.

The bronze statue shows a naked youth standing still, of about life size (1.85 metres high, 6'1").

An inscription is incised on the right thigh:[3] This is the dedication of two freedmen, who were probably active in the Stadt auf dem Magdalensberg as merchants.

The statue is an eclectic work of Roman idealised sculpture and was made in the first half of the first century BC.

The first comes from Peter Apian and Bartholemew Amand's Inscriptiones Sacrosanctae Vetustatis of 1534, the other from a fresco of Hans Bocksberger der Ältere in the chapel aisle of the Landshut Residence from 1542.