Art UK has updated its cookies policy. By using this website you are agreeing to the use of cookies. To find out more read our updated Use of Cookies policy and our updated Privacy policy.

Young Spartans Exercising

Image credit: The National Gallery, London

How you can use this image

This image can be used for non-commercial research or private study purposes, and other UK exceptions to copyright permitted to users based in the United Kingdom under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised. Any other type of use will need to be cleared with the rights holder(s).

Review the copyright credit lines that are located underneath the image, as these indicate who manages the copyright (©) within the artwork, and the photographic rights within the image.

The collection that owns the artwork may have more information on their own website about permitted uses and image licensing options.

Review our guidance pages which explain how you can reuse images, how to credit an image and how to find images in the public domain or with a Creative Commons licence available.

Buy a print or image licence

You can purchase this reproduction

If you have any products in your basket we recommend that you complete your purchase from Art UK before you leave our site to avoid losing your purchases.

Notes

Add or edit a note on this artwork that only you can see. You can find notes again by going to the ‘Notes’ section of your account.

The painting illustrates a passage from the Life of Lycurgus by the Roman historian Plutarch, which describes how Spartan girls were ordered to engage in exercise – including running, wrestling and throwing the discus and javelin – and to challenge boys. However, this may be a scene of courtship rather than competition, as aspects of the girls' hairstyles and poses correspond with accounts of such rituals in Plutarch’s writing. In the middle distance a group of women, mothers of the children, surround the elderly Lycurgus, who drew up the rules of Sparta. Beyond them is the city of Sparta, overlooked on the left by Mount Taygetus, from which unwanted Spartan infants were thrown. Degas abandoned his first attempt at the painting (now in the Art Institute, Chicago) and made substantial changes to this second version as he tried to modernise it, replacing the classical features of the adolescents with more contemporary faces.

The National Gallery, London

London

Title

Young Spartans Exercising

Date

about 1860

Medium

Oil on canvas

Measurements

H 109.5 x W 155 cm

Accession number

NG3860

Acquisition method

Bought, 1924

Work type

Painting

Tags

See a tag that’s incorrect or offensive? Challenge it and notify Art UK.

Help improve Art UK. Tag artworks and verify existing tags by joining the Tagger community.

The National Gallery, London

Trafalgar Square, London, Greater London WC2N 5DN England

This venue is open to the public. Not all artworks are on display. If you want to see a particular artwork, please contact the venue.
View venue