Hermes Fastening his Sandal
The sculptures of Hermes Fastening his Sandal, which exist in several versions, are all Roman marble copies of a lost Greek bronze original in the manner of
The identification with Hermes is based on an identification of the original bronze model as a sculpture of Hermes in the gymnasium and thermae of Zeuxippos in Constantinople, which was described in detail by Christodoros of Koptos in his ekphrasis of the gymnasium as it still remained in Late Antiquity:
There was Hermes, of the golden wand. He stood and fastened up the thongs of his winged sandal with his right hand, yearning to rush forth upon his course. His swift right leg was bent at the knee, and on it he rested his left hand, and meanwhile he was turning his face up to heaven, as if he were hearing the commands of his king and father"[3]
It was not until 1977, with the discovery of a copy from Perge in Turkey, that scholars were able to securely identify the sculpture as Hermes.[5] This copy held the Kerykeion in the left hand, wore wings on the head and had winged sandals.
Judging from the fully lifesize scale of the copies and their generally high quality, the original bronze must have been respected as one of the received masterpieces in the canon of antiquity (Ridgway 1964:120). Four moderately complete Roman marble copies have survived.
- The Louvre Hermes Fastening his SandalPentelic marble, the antique head of Parian marble.
- The Lansdowne Sandal Binder (marble, 1.54m.), found in Tivoli, was offered to Pope Clement XIV who refused it, and sold in 1772 to the Earl of Shelburne;[9] it was sold in 1930 and is now at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, where Poulsen described it as probably Hermes, leaving open the possibility that it simply portrays an athlete.[10]This is the only surviving model that has retained its head, though the head has been broken.
- The Munich Sandal-Fastener in the Glyptothek, Munich, was found in the late 1780s by conte G. Campagnoli Marefoschi, in his own grounds on the site of part of Hadrian's Villa; Thomas Jenkins, the English dealer established at Rome, sold it to duca Luigi Braschi Onesti, who had it further restored by Francesco Antonio Franzoni, before selling it to Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria. This version shows the second sandal on the ground; other sculptures have been restored with this detail (Ridgway 1964:114 and note 11). It has been restored with an unrelated head and has been thoroughly resurfaced. A plaster cast incorporating the features that are original in each of these versions is conserved in the Glytothek, Munich; a bronze casting of it is in the Stadtmuseum, Stettin (Ridgway 1964:117).
- The Perge Hermes in the Antalya Archeological Museum. Found in the southern Thermae in Perge, Turkey. This copy holds many attributes, which identifies it as a sculpture depicting Hermes.[5]
Three surviving torsos have also been identified, including one in unfinished state, which has retained its head and has escaped the eighteenth-century Roman restorers; it is now conserved at the Acropolis Museum, Athens. Other variants include sculptures in similar, but reversed mirror-image poses, probably intended as pendants to the Hermes Fastening his Sandal.
The theme was taken up by
Gallery
-
The Louvre copy on exhibit at theMusée Matisse (Le Cateau)
-
View from the back
-
Hermes Sandalbinder from Hadrian's Villa now at Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen
-
Copy at the Copenhagen Botanical Gardens
-
Variant from Hadrian's Villa now at the Capitoline Museums
-
The Hermes from Perge at the Antalya Archeological Museum
Notes
- ^ Jason's appearance before king Pelias with one sandal, having lost the other in crossing a river, appeared to satisfy an ominous oracle for the king, who sent Jason on his quest as a means of ridding himself of this dangerous interloper.
- ^ Augustus John Cuthbert Hare, Walks in London: "Lansdowne House" (New York: G. Routledge, 1878) vol. II p 85; the identification as Jason had been put forward by Winckelmann
- ^ Quoted by A. H. Smith, "The Sculptures in Lansdowne House" The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 6 No. 22 (January 1905) p. 277.
- ^ Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway, "The Date of the So-Called Lysippean Jason" American Journal of Archaeology 68.2 (April 1964:113-128)
- ^ a b Inan, Jale (1993). "Der Sandalenbindende Hermes". Antike Plastik. 22: 105–116.
- ^ Ma 83. 1.61 m.. Louvre Atlas database.
- ^ Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Antique Sculpture 1500-1900 (Yale University Press) 1981, cat. 83, pp 182-84; Haskell and Penny's account of its history is followed in this article.
- ^ Noted by Haskell and Penny 1981:
- ^ Haskell and Penny 1981:184;G. J. Hamilton and A. H. Smith, "Gavin Hamilton's Letters to Charles Townley" The Journal of Hellenic Studies 21 (1901:306-321) p. 319: "A Theseus putting on his Sandal...Lord Shelburne"; "Cincinnatus" added
- ^ F. Poulsen, Catalogue of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, 1951:204; Copenhagen I.N.2798, height 1.45m; the collection also has a plaster cast (A7) of the Louvre marble.
Bibliography
- Hare, Augustus John Cuthbert (1878). Walks in London. Vol. 2, p. 185. London: Daldy, Isbister. Title pageat HathiTrust.
- Hamilton, G. J.; A. H. Smith (1901). "Gavin Hamilton's Letters to Charles Townley", The Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 21, pp. 306–321. JSTOR 623878.
- OCLC 853500647.
- Poulsen, Frederik (1951). Catalogue of ancient sculpture in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. Copenhagen: Nielsen & Lydiche. Limited search copy at HathiTrust. OCLC 3657489.
- JSTOR 501650.
- Smith, A. H. (1905). "The Sculptures in Lansdowne House", JSTOR 856224.
- Winkelmann, Giovanni (1783). Storia delle arti disegno presso gli antichi, translated from German and in this edition, corrected and augmented by Abbot Carlo Fea, vol. 2, pp. 327–328. Rome: Pagliarini.