Hermes and the Infant Dionysus
Encyclopedia
Hermes and the Infant Dionysos, also known as the Hermes of Praxiteles or the Hermes of Olympus is an ancient Greek sculpture
Ancient Greek sculpture
Ancient Greek sculpture is the sculpture of Ancient Greece. Modern scholarship identifies three major stages. They were used to depict the battles, mythology, and rulers of the land known as Ancient Greece.-Geometric:...
of Hermes
Hermes
Hermes is the great messenger of the gods in Greek mythology and a guide to the Underworld. Hermes was born on Mount Kyllini in Arcadia. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of the cunning of thieves, of orators and...
and the infant Dionysus
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...
discovered in 1877 in the ruins of the Temple of Hera
Hera
Hera was the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of Greek mythology and religion. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. Her counterpart in the religion of ancient Rome was Juno. The cow and the peacock were sacred to her...
at Olympia
Olympia, Greece
Olympia , a sanctuary of ancient Greece in Elis, is known for having been the site of the Olympic Games in classical times, comparable in importance to the Pythian Games held in Delphi. Both games were held every Olympiad , the Olympic Games dating back possibly further than 776 BC...
. It is displayed at the Archaeological Museum of Olympia.
It is traditionally attributed to Praxiteles
Praxiteles
Praxiteles of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attic sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue...
and dated to the 4th century BC, based on a remark by the 2nd century Greek traveller Pausanias
Pausanias (geographer)
Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...
, and has made a major contribution to the definition of Praxitelean style. Its attribution is, however, the object of fierce controversy among art historians.
The sculpture is unlikely to have been one of Praxiteles' famous works, as no ancient replicas of it have been identified. The documentary evidence associating the work with Praxiteles is based on a passing mention by the 2nd-century AD traveller Pausanias
Pausanias (geographer)
Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...
.
Rediscovery
In 1874, the Greek state signed an agreement with Germany for an archaeological exploration of the Olympia site, which was first dug in the French Morea expeditionMorea expedition
The Morea expedition is the name given in France to the land intervention of the French Army in the Peloponnese, between 1828 and 1833, at the time of the Greek War of Independence....
of 1829. The German excavations in 1875 were led by Ernst Curtius
Ernst Curtius
You may be looking for Ernst Robert Curtius .Ernst Curtius was a German archaeologist and historian.-Biography:...
. On 8 May 1877, in the temple of Hera, he uncovered the body (head, torso, legs, left arm) of a statue of a young man resting against a tree trunk covered by a mantle. Protected by the thick clay layer above it, it was in an exceptionally good state of preservation.
It took six more separate discoveries to uncover the rest of the statue as it is displayed today. Hermes is still missing his right forearm, two fingers of his left hand, both forearms below the elbow, the left foot and his penis, whilst Dionysus is missing his arms (except the right hand on Hermes's shoulder) and the end of his right foot. Much of the tree trunk and the plinth are also lost. However, an ancient base survives, made of a grey limestone block between two blocks of marble.
Technical considerations
The group is sculpted from a block of the best quality of Parian marbleParian marble
Parian marble is a fine-grained semitranslucent pure-white and entirely flawless marble quarried during the classical era on the Greek island of Paros in the Aegean Sea.It was highly prized by ancient Greeks for making sculptures...
. Hermes measures 2.10/2.12 m, 3.70 m with the base. The right foot of Hermes is integral with a section of the base, which has undergone some adjustment in antiquity.
The face and torso of Hermes are striking for their highly polished, glowing surface, which John Boardman
John Boardman
Jack Melton Boardman, commonly known as John Boardman, is an American former professor of physics at Brooklyn College.- Academic career :...
half-jokingly attributed to generations of female temple workers. The back, by contrast, shows the marks of the rasp and chisel, and the rest of the sculpture is incompletely finished.
At the time of its discovery, the hair retained slight traces of cinnabar
Cinnabar
Cinnabar or cinnabarite , is the common ore of mercury.-Word origin:The name comes from κινναβαρι , a Greek word most likely applied by Theophrastus to several distinct substances...
, a form of mercury sulfate with a red color, perhaps a preparation for gilding. Cinnabar tints are retained on the sandal straps of the original foot, with traces of gilding. The sandal also bears the motif of a Heraclean knot, which was probably extended in paint.