art.wikisort.org - Sculpture

The Sleeping Hermaphroditus is an ancient marble sculpture depicting Hermaphroditus life size. In 1620, Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini sculpted the mattress upon which the statue now lies. The form is partly derived from ancient portrayals of Venus and other female nudes, and partly from contemporaneous feminised Hellenistic portrayals of Dionysus/Bacchus. It represents a subject that was much repeated in Hellenistic times and in ancient Rome, to judge from the number of versions that have survived. Discovered at Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome, the Sleeping Hermaphroditus was immediately claimed by Cardinal Scipione Borghese and became part of the Borghese Collection. The "Borghese Hermaphroditus" was later sold to the occupying French and was moved to The Louvre, where it is on display.

Sleeping Hermaphroditus
Artist	Unknown, Gian Lorenzo Bernini (mattress)
Year	Unknown, 1620 (mattress)
Catalogue	11
Type	Sculpture
Medium	Marble
Subject	Hermaphroditus
Dimensions	169 cm (67 in)
Location	The Louvre, Paris
Preceded by	The Rape of Proserpina
Followed by	Bust of Pope Gregory XV

The Sleeping Hermaphroditus has been described as a good early Imperial Roman copy of a bronze original by the later of the two Hellenistic sculptors named Polycles (working ca 155 BC);[1] the original bronze was mentioned in Pliny's Natural History.[2]

Original Borghese copy

The ancient sculpture was discovered in the first decades of the seventeenth 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, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Scipione's protégé, was paid sixty scudi for making the buttoned mattress upon which the Hermaphroditus reclines, so strikingly realistic that visitors are inclined to give it a testing prod.[4][5]

The Sleeping Hermaphroditus and many other sculptures were purchased in 1807 from prince Camillo Borghese, owner of the Borghese Collection, who had married Pauline Bonaparte. It was transferred to The Louvre, where it inspired Algernon Charles Swinburne's poem "Hermaphroditus" in 1863.[6]

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  Musée du Louvre copy
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  Front
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  Back
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  Detail
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  Top

Ancient copies

A second-century copy of the Sleeping Hermaphroditus was found in 1781, and has taken the original's place at the Galleria Borghese. A third Roman marble variant was discovered in 1880, during building works to make Rome the capital of a newly united Italy. It is now on display at the Museo Palazzo Massimo Alle Terme, part of the National Museum of Rome.

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  National Museum of Rome copy
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  Back
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  Front
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  Detail

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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  Left view
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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 Philip IV of Spain in bronze, ordered by Velázquez and now in the Prado Museum, and for Versailles (by the sculptor Martin Carlier [fr], in marble). The composition has clearly influenced Velázquez's painting of the Rokeby Venus, now in London.[7] A reduced-scale bronze copy, made and signed by Giovanni Francesco Susini, is now at the Metropolitan Museum. Another reduced-scale copy, this time produced in ivory by François Duquesnoy, was purchased in Rome by John Evelyn in the 1640s.[8] American artist Barry X Ball produced a life-size copy after the Louvre's version, made from Belgian black marble on a Carrara marble base, which was completed in 2010.[9] This sculpture was offered at Christies NY for sale, 10 May 2016. Estimated price $500,000-800,000.

See also

• List of works by Gian Lorenzo Bernini

References

Notes

Bibliography

External links

Media related to Borghese Hermaphroditus (Louvre, Ma 231) at Wikimedia Commons

• Sleeping Hermaphroditos | Louvre Museum - Statue information
• The first copy, Louvre catalogue page (in French)
• Hermaphrodites at the Villa Borghese

На других языках

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- [en] Sleeping Hermaphroditus

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[es] Hermafrodito durmiente

El Hermafrodita durmiente es una escultura de mármol que representa al personaje de la mitología griega Hermafrodito, hijo de Hermes y Afrodita, y devenido hermafrodita, a tamaño natural y recostado sobre un colchón. El colchón fue esculpido y añadido en 1620 por el artista italiano Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

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[it] Ermafrodito dormiente

L'Ermafrodito dormiente è una scultura in marmo raffigurante il personaggio della mitologia greca Ermafrodito, figlio di Ermes e Afrodite, a grandezza naturale. Ne esistono numerosi esemplari antichi e copie moderne; la più celebre è quella oggi al museo del Louvre, in cui la statua giace su un materasso appositamente scolpito da Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

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[ru] Спящий Гермафродит

Спящий Гермафродит — римская копия древнегреческой скульптуры II века до нашей эры. Она была упомянута в «Естественной истории» Плиния Старшего. Эта скульптура имеет множество древних реплик, наиболее известные из них хранятся в Уффици во Флоренции, в Санкт-Петербургском Эрмитаже, Национальном музее Рима, галерее Боргезе, в парижском Лувре. В эпоху Возрождения на фоне интереса к античной культуре также было сделано множество копий.

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