Bronze statue of Eros sleeping | All | Greek and Roman Art | Collection Database | Works of Art

Description

The Hellenistic period introduced the accurate characterization of age, and young children enjoyed great favor, whether in mythological form, as baby Herakles or Eros, or in genre scenes, playing with each other or with pets. This child, with his plump body and relaxed pose, is clearly based on firsthand observation. Eros, god of love, has been brought down to earth and disarmed, a conception considerably different from that of the powerful, often cruel, and capricious being so often addressed in Archaic poetry. One of the few bronze statues to have survived from antiquity, this figure gives a sense of the immediacy and naturalistic detail that the medium of bronze made possible.
The support on which the god rests is a modern addition, but the work originally had a separate base, most likely of stone.

ProvenanceSaid to have been found on Rhodes (Richter 1943-44, p. 122).

1930, purchased by Joseph Brummer from E. Geladakis, Paris; acquired February 9, 1943, purchased from Joseph Brummer, New York.

Selected BibliographyRichter, G. M. A. 1943. "A Bronze Eros." MMA Bulletin, n.s., 2 (November): 118-25, ill.

Richter, G. M. A. 1943. "A Bronze Eros." American Journal of Archaeology 47 (October-December): 365-78, figs. 1-7, 13.

Bothmer, Dietrich von. 1949. "The Classical Contribution to Western Civilization." MMA Bulletin, n.s., 7: 208, ill.

Richter, G.M.A. 1950. Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 68, 390, fig. 121.

Charbonneaux, J. 1962. Greek Bronzes. Translated by K. Watson. New York: Viking, p. 129, pl. XXV, 3.

Forsyth, W. H. 1974. "Acquisitions from the Brummer Gallery." In The Grand Gallery at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 2, fig. 1.

Mertens, J. R. 1985. "Greek Bronzes in The Metropolitan Museum of Art." MMA Bulletin, n.s., 43, no. 2: 52-53, no. 34.

Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1986. Vol. 3, "Eros," p. 916, no. 780a, pl. 654. Zürich: Artemis.

Söldner, M. 1986. Untersuchungen zu liegenden Eroten in der hellenistischen und römischen Kunst. Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang, vol. 2, p. 605, no. 17.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1987. Greece and Rome. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 72, pl. 53.

Mattusch, C. C. 1996. Classical Bronzes: The Art and Craft of Greek and Roman Statuary. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, pp. 161, 163, 165, fig. 5.9, a-c, pl. 4.

Zimmer, G. and N. Hackländer. 1997. Der betende Knabe. Original und Experiment. Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang, p. 52, pl. 21.2.

Mattusch, C. C. 1998. "Rhodian Sculpture: A School, a Style, or Many Workshops?" In Regional Schools in Hellenistic Sculpture, edited by O. Palagia and W. Coulson. Oxford: Oxbow, p. 154, fig. 10.

Beaumont, L. A. 2003. "The Changing Face of Childhood." In J. Neils and J. H. Oakley et al., Coming of Age in Ancient Greece: Images of Childhood from the Classical Past. New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 81, fig. 20.

Kunze, C. 2003. "Die Konstruktion einer realen Begegnung: zur Statue des Barberinischen Fauns in München." In Neue Forschungen zur hellenistischen Plastik. Kolloquium zum 70. Geburtstag von Georg Daltrop, edited by G. Zimmer. Eichstätt-Ingolstadt : Katholische Universität, pp. 39-47, figs. 13-16.

Neils, J. and J.H. Oakley. 2003. Coming of Age in Ancient Greece. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 80-1, fig. 20.

Burn, L. 2004. Hellenistic Art: From Alexander the Great to Augustus. London: British Museum Press, p. 148, fig. 85.

Hemingway, S. 2004. The Horse and Jockey from Artemision: A Bronze Equestrian Monument of the Hellenistic Period. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 7-9, fig. 5.

Picón, C. A., et al. 2007. Art of the Classical World in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 451, no. 240, ill. pp. 206-7.

Hemingway, S. 2007. "From Gods to Grotesques. Hellenistic Bronze Scupture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art." Apollo (May): 50-56, fig. 1.

Additional Views

1 of 1

Enlarge

Curatorial Department

Greek and Roman Art: All