Among the surprises in the British Museum’s exhibition on Greek sculpture is an important early 20th century bronze copy which most archaeologists assumed had been destroyed during the Second World War. It is a reconstruction of the famous Doryphoros (spear-bearer), made in around 1920 by the German sculptor Georg Römer. He based it on three Roman marble copies of the lost Greek original by Polykleitos of around 440 to 430 BC.

Römer’s copy has had a chequered history.