Bust of Hermes from Hermes and the Infant Dionysos
- Title:
- Bust of Hermes from Hermes and the Infant Dionysos
- Collection:
- Cornell Cast Collection
- Creator:
- Unknown (attributed to Praxiteles by Pausanius)
- Photographer:
- Mericle, Danielle
- Date:
- ca. 1890-1900
ca. 300-250 BCE
- Site:
- Olympia, Greece (discovery site, 1877) (original)
- Location:
- 726 University Avenue, Cornell University
Olympia, Greece (discovery site, 1877) (original) - ID Number:
- CCC_0779
- Accession Number:
- Sage no. 217
labeled with red pencil: "1866"
722 - File Name:
- CCC_0779.tif
- Culture:
- Greek or Roman
- Style/Period:
- Greek Classical, Hellenistic, or Roman
- Work Type:
- casts (sculpture)
- Materials/Techniques:
- plaster cast (sculpture)
marble sculpture in the round (original) - Subject:
- Hermes (Greek deity)
- Image View Type:
- overall
- Image View Description:
- from front
- Measurement:
- 79 (with socle) x 62.5 (without socle) x ca. 59 x ca. 30 (centimeters, height x height x width x diameter)
- Description:
- This is a cast of the nude upper torso and head of Hermes from the statue of Hermes and the Infant Dionysos excavated from the Heraion at Olympia in 1877, and seen by Pausanias and attributed by him to Praxiteles (5.17.3-4). The god's hair is short and curly. He lowers and turns his head slightly to his left, casting his gaze low. In the original, full statue, Hermes holds his infant brother in his left arm and looks down at him, while Dionysos looks up. In this bust the arms are cut just below the shoulders and the torso is cut just under the pectoral muscles. A part of Dionysos' small hand rests on Hermes' left shoulder. The date and attribution of the work remain debated among scholars. It was early on identified as an original of the Praxiteles who lived in the fourth century BCE, and subsequently as a work of a later (second century BCE) Praxiteles, a Hellenistic original by another sculptor, or a Hellenistic or Roman copy of Praxiteles' (or perhaps another artist's) original. It is unlikely an original of the fourth century BCE Praxiteles. Currently, many scholars date the piece to the Hellenistic period.
- Notes:
- Items in the Cornell Cast Collection are meant for inventory and reference purposes. Metadata may not be complete in all cases.
no. L 48 - Bibliography:
- Carl Blümel, Der Hermes eines Praxiteles (Baden-Baden: Woldemar Klein Verlag, 1948)
Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway, Fourth-Century Styles in Greek Sculpture (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997), 261-262, 281
Andrew Stewart, Greek Sculpture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 177, 278-279, figs. 607-609 - Related Work:
- ID nos. 136, 1361-c are fragments of a cast of the full statue.
- Repository:
- Cornell University (current)
Olympia, Archaeological Museum (original) - Collecting Program:
- Cornell Collections of Antiquities
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- The images in the Cornell Collection of Antiquities: Casts are protected by copyright, and the copyright holders are their creators, generally Cornell University Library, Annetta Alexandridis, and Verity Platt. This collection of plaster casts owned by Cornell University was photographed by Cornell University Library, Alexandridis, Platt, and Andreya L. Mihaloew from 2010-2015, with funding from a Digital Collections in Arts and Sciences Grant to Annetta Alexandridis. Cornell is providing access to the materials for research and personal use. The written permission of any copyright and other rights holders is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use that extends beyond what is authorized by fair use and other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item. Please contact Annetta Alexandridis and Verity Platt for more information about this collection, or to request permission to use these images.