Leochares (Greek Λεοχάρης Leochárēs) was a Greek sculptor during the time of Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great. He was active in Athens and belonged to the middle Attic school.
He made several statues of Zeus, images of Apollo and Ares, a Ganymede carried up by the eagle (which seems to be copied in the well-known Vatican group, a work of ingenious invention), a young merchant, and a statue of the athlete Autolykos, executed by the Thirty Tyrants, which was later placed at the Prytaneion (City Hall) in Athens; also in association with Lysipp:
Alexander at the Lion Hunt, in bronze; then, by order of Philip of Macedon after the Battle of Chaironeia, the statues in the Philippeion at Olympia: Philip, Alexander, Amyntas, Olympias and Eurydice, in gold and ivory. Leochares is also credited with the famous Apollo of Belvedere.
With Sthennis he was also busy on the monument of the family of Andätes and Pasikles on the Acropolis at Athens, with Skopas, Bryaxis and others on the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos, whose western side he decorated with sculptures.
Plato mentions him in his "Thirteenth Letter" (considered by some scholars to be spurious) and calls him there a "young and capable artist". He bought from him on behalf of the tyrant Dionysios II a statue of Apollo, which he sent to the client in Syracuse.
