Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-7pwfn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-14T18:22:44.678Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Statuette of Eros

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Percy Gardner
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The interesting statuette of Eros, a photographic print of which accompanies this paper, was presented by His Majesty the King of the Hellenes to Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, who has been good enough to permit its publication in these pages. It is of terra-cotta, gilt, and measures 10¼ inches in height without the plinth. It is almost uninjured; but the thumb of the right hand is a restoration. At the back is the usual round air-hole.

It is evident at once that we have here to do with a very unusual representation of Eros, and with one which is to most people singularly pleasing: the head in particular being very attractive. In spite of grave faults in the modelling which reveal themselves on closer inspection, it remains clear that the statuette must be derived from some notable sculptural type. On first seeing it I was at once convinced that it must stand in no distant relation to one of the celebrated statues of Eros, by Praxiteles; and subsequent study has, I hope, put me in a position to prove what was at first mere matter of surmise.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 4 , November 1883, pp. 266 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1883

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

page 268 note 1 The Hermes is the frontispiece to the second volume of Overbeck's Geschichte der Gr. Plastik, 3rd Edit. An engraving of the satyr, ibid. p. 41.

page 268 note 2 Plin. N. H. xxxvi. 23.

page 269 note 1 Berichte der k. Sächs. Ges. d. Wiss. 1866.

page 269 note 2 Anth. Gr. III. p. 133, No. 94.

page 269 note 3 One of these coins was published by Rauch in the Berliner Blätter, vol. v. p. 16; from the evidence of this single specimen Bursian came to the conclusion that the figure represented was the Praxitelean Eros. I have been unable to consult Dr. Bursian's paper. (See Riggauer in the Zeitschrift für Numismatik, vol. viii.)

page 270 note 1 On all of these coins there appears by the side of Eros a small terminal figure. On No. 8 of the Plate, a coin of Antoninus Pius, it occurs on a larger scale. Rauch wrongly took it for an altar. The figure is distinctly bearded, and so cannot be an archaic simulacrum of Eros. Its constant introduction on the coins shows however that it stood near the statue of Praxiteles.

page 272 note 1 Eros wears a nebris in the group at Brocklesby House. Michaelis, Anc. Marbles, No. 90, Clarac, , Musée de Sc. iv. 690, 1626.Google Scholar

page 273 note 1 Terres cuites d'Asie Min., Pl. xxxii.

page 273 note 2 M. Froehner thus describes the dress: ‘Sa draperie n'a pas d'agrafes, et ne tient pas sur l'épaule; les glands de plomb, fixés aux extrémités l'empêchent seuls de tomber et font contrepoids.’

page 273 note 3 ‘special influence in Asia of the School of Praxiteles,’ Types of Greek Coins, p. 209.

page 274 note 1 Since this paper was in type I have received from the kindness of Prof. Michaelis a copy of Dr. Bursian's tract De Cupidine Praxitelis Pariano, as well as several important references by which I have been much aided. Dr. Bursian fully agrees with me that the epigram of Palladas does not refer to the statue at Parium; and he anticipates my view that the figure presented on the coin of Antoninus Pius, No. 1 of the plate, the only specimen known to him, is a copy of this statue. He remarks that on the coin the head or Eros is turned upwards as if he were watching some one descending from heaven, or listening to a voice from above. Also that the right hand of Eros is stretched out to signify that he awaits the worship of mankind, and his left grasps the top of his chlamys. These suggestions are valuable; but I cannot fully accept them, as I regard the position of the head on the coin as a natural rendering in relief of the attitude of the head of the terra-cotta; and I do not think that the left hand grasps anything, though the bad state of the coin makes this uncertain. The period to which Bursian, with the approbation of Overbeck, assigns the Parian statue is about B.C. 340.