Sleeping Hermaphroditus
| Sleeping Hermaphroditus | |
|---|---|
The Louvre, Paris | |
| Preceded by | The Rape of Proserpina |
| Followed by | Bust of Pope Gregory XV |
The Sleeping Hermaphrodite is an ancient marble sculpture depicting
The Sleeping Hermaphrodite has been described as a good early Imperial Roman copy of a bronze original by the later of the two Hellenistic sculptors named
Original Borghese copy
The ancient sculpture was discovered in the first decades of the 17th century—unearthed in the grounds of Santa Maria della Vittoria, near the Baths of Diocletian and within the bounds of the ancient Gardens of Sallust. The discovery was made either when the church foundations were being dug (in 1608) or when espaliers were being planted.[3]
The sculpture was presented to the connoisseur Cardinal Scipione Borghese, who in return granted the order the services of his architect Giovanni Battista Soria and paid for the façade of the church, albeit sixteen years later. In his new Villa Borghese, a room called the Room of the Hermaphrodite was devoted to it.
In 1620,
The Sleeping Hermaphrodite and many other sculptures were purchased in 1807 from prince
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Musée du Louvre copy -
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Ancient copies
A second-century copy of the Sleeping Hermaphroditus was found in 1781, and has taken the original's place at the
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National Museum of Rome copy -
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Additional ancient copies can be found at the Uffizi in Florence, Vatican Museums in Vatican City, and the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.
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Hermitage Museum copy -
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Right view
Modern copies
Many copies have been produced since the Renaissance, in a variety of media and scales. Full size copies were produced for
See also
References
Notes
- ^ Robertson, A History of Greek Art, (1975), vol. I:551-52.
- ^ Pliny, Hist. Nat., XXXIV.19.
- ^ According to two seventeenth-century accounts noted in Haskell and Penny 1981:234.
- ^ Borghese accounts.
- ^ Haskell and Penny, 1981:235.
- ^ Text of "Hermaphroditus" Archived 2008-03-17 at the Wayback Machine
- ISBN 0-947645-46-2
- ^ Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique (Yale University Press) 1981, cat. no. 48 (pp. 234ff et passim)
- ^ "Barry X Ball's black marble 'Sleeping Hermaphrodite' after the Louvre's Hermaphrodite Endormi". barryxball.com. Retrieved September 9, 2022.
- ^ Christie's (10 May 2016). "Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sale".
Bibliography
- Haskell, Francis and Nicholas Penny (1981). Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture, 1600-1900. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Avery, Charles (1997). Bernini: Genius of the Baroque. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 9780500286333.
- Baldinucci, Filippo (2006). The Life of Bernini. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 9780271730769.
- Bernini, Domenico (2011). The Life of Giano Lorenzo Bernini. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 9780271037486.
- Mormando, Franco (2011). Bernini: His Life and His Rome. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226538525.
- Robertson, Martin (1975).A History of Greek Art, vol. I:551-52, New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Wittkower, Rudolf (1955). Gian Lorenzo Bernini: The Sculptor of the Roman Baroque. London: Phaidon Press. ISBN 9780801414305.
- Mancinotti, Luca (2017). Ermafroditi dormienti Tipo Borghese. Rome: L'Erma di Bretschneider. ISBN 9788891316134.
External links
Media related to Borghese Hermaphroditus (Louvre, Ma 231) at Wikimedia Commons