Hermes and the Infant Dionysos
- Title:
- Hermes and the Infant Dionysos
- Collection:
- Cornell Cast Collection
- Creator:
- Unknown (attributed to Praxiteles by Pausanius)
- Photographer:
- Alexandridis, Annetta
- Date:
- ca. 1890-1900
ca. 300-100 BCE
2008 (image)
- Site:
- Olympia, Greece (discovery site, 1877) (original)
- Location:
- Warehouse
Olympia, Greece (discovery site, 1877) (original) - ID Number:
- CCC_0136a
- Accession Number:
- Sage no. 259
259 (old sticker on front of plinth)
10
136 - File Name:
- CCC_0136a.tif
- Original Measurements:
- 215 (H) cm (complete statue)
- Culture:
- Greek
- Style/Period:
- Hellenistic
- Work Type:
- casts (sculpture)
- Materials/Techniques:
- plaster cast (sculpture)
marble sculpture in the round (original) - Subject:
- Hermes (Greek deity)
Dionysus (Greek deity) - Image View Type:
- overall
- Image View Description:
- from front
- Measurement:
- 90 x 55 (maximum) (centimeters, height x width)
- Description:
- This is a damaged cast of the Hermes and the Infant Dionysos excavated from the Heraion at Olympia in 1877 and seen by Pausanias in the 2nd c. CE, who attributed the work to the 4th c. BCE sculptor Praxiteles (5.17.3-4). The statue group represents the period following Dionysos' birth from Zeus' thigh, when the king of the gods handed the infant to Hermes in order to protect Dionysos from the wrath of Hera. In its complete form, Hermes holds his infant brother in his left arm and looks down toward him, while Dionysos looks up. Cornell's cast, produced in several pieces, is fragmentary and incomplete and is now represented by four fragments. This record represents Hermes' head and nude, well-muscled torso, curving to his left. The god's hair is short and curly. He lowers and turns his head slightly to his left, casting his calm gaze low. Hermes' raised right arm is missing below the shoulder (a longer section of it is preserved in the original). A part of Dionysos' small hand rests on Hermes' left shoulder. The piece was cast separately, as evidenced by the joins at the left upper arm and at the abdomen. 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 - Related Work:
- Cornell's Hermes and the Infant Dionysus is represented by ID nos. 136, 136a, 136b, 136c. ID no. 722 is a cast of the bust of this 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.