A Statuette of Eros Author(s): Percy Gardner Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 4 (1883), pp.

266-274 Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/623373 Accessed: 18/12/2008 05:14
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266

A STATUETTE OF EROS.

A STATUETTE

OF EROS.

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 10| 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. I am unable to state positively where the statuette was found. The Princess of Wales supposes it to come from Tanagra: but on grounds of style this provenance would seem scarcely probable. The fact that it was gilt points strongly to Asia Minor as its source; gilding being a marked characteristic of the statuettes of Asia Minor, especially those of Smyrna. And the style of art is most distinctly that of Asia and not that of Greece proper. We might search in vain among the figures from Tanagra for anything like it; but turning to the plates of M. Froehner's Terres Cuites d'Asie Mineure we at once find several statuettes, and even several figures of Eros, which bear a strong family resemblance to the present figure. I would instance the figures

'4l

,,

A STATUETTE OF EROS.

267

of Eros on plates 4, 9, 18, 20, and 29, in Froehner's work; and more particularly the figure on plate 32, which comes from Smyrna, and which bears so striking a resemblance to our statuette that the two must almost necessarily belong to the same school. To this figure we will hereafter return. It seems, therefore, almost certain, in the absence of direct evidence to the contrary, that the original source of the present statuette was Asia Minor. A detailed description of the statuette is the more necessary, because our plate represents it only in one aspect. The hair is bound with simple fillet or taenia, and arranged in two plaits which lead up to a sort of knot (~cpea3vXo?)over the forehead, an arrangement not unusual in the case of Eros; the face is full of gentle and pleasing expression, and looks slightly towards the left. The wings are very small, but this is caused probably by the fragile nature of the material; they are rather abbreviated than out of proportion. The body is neither that of a young man nor that of a child, but that of a boy. The arms and the body are full and soft, almost to effeminacy; this is indeed the least pleasing feature of the whole; the artist has certainly here and there, especially in the treatment of the abdomen, passed the line which separates pleasing softness from weakness and fleshiness. The only garment worn by this Eros is a fawnskin (nebris), or a cloth closely resembling a fawnskin in form and appearance, which passes over the left shoulder and under the right arm, long ends hanging down the left side. As to this I shall speak later. The feet are, as so often in the case of statuettes, very long and rather clumsy. The rough trunk of a tree is added as a support. The artistic motive of the statuette is not very easily discerned. At first sight the attitude seems to resemble that of one who has just discharged an arrow and holds a bow still in his left hand. But I do not think that this theory will sustain a closer inspection. Again, on the left hand may have rested a butterfly, or it may have held a flower. Perhaps the correct solution may be that Eros is not occupied in doing anything; but is merely standing and looking into the distance. If we seek the salient characteristics of the statuette they will be easily found. Eros is here far removed from the vigorous and athletic youth who represents him in early art. He is of

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A STATUETTEOF EROS.

far more sensuous type than the gentle boy who is yet every inch a boy in the group of gods in the Parthenon frieze. Nor has he anything in common with the sturdy and playful babies who do duty in Roman and late Greek art for the god of love. He is, or rather the original which he represents is, the creation of an age when sentiment, and indeed a somewhat sensuous sentiment, was making its way into art; while sculpture was still ideal in tone and not yet contented with crude realism; and before the art of portraying children had reached its perfection. This seems to me equivalent to saying that our statuette is copied from an original of the time of the second Attic school. If we take a typical statue of that school, the Olympian Hermes, and place it beside the statuette, we shall see at least in externals and in general effect a certain resemblance. The face looks in the same direction, the pose of both legs is nearly the same, and a line drawn from head to foot down the middle of the body will follow the same curve. The drapery of our statuette resembles in some respects that of the Satyr in the Louvre and of the Satyr at the Capitol,1 both of which are traced back by the best judges to a Praxitelean original; though it must beconfessed that the nebris, if nebris it be of the statuette, is rolled at the top ina way which seems unusual. I donot suppose our statuette itself to date from the time of Praxiteles. It is probably of later date than the time of Alexander the Great, and there are many weaknesses in the workwhich mark the hand of a later and less original artist. Butmy contention is that thestatuette bears thesame relation tosome Eros of Praxiteles which certain extant Aphrodites bear to the Cnidian Aphrodite of the same master. That is, it will resembleit in pose, and in general character. Weshall probably bejustified in going further and singling out the particular statue which the artist who modelled our statuette intended to copy. Pliny2mentions a statue of Eros Praxiteles as existing in histime at Parium in the by Propontis 'ejusdem (Praxitelis est) et alter (Cupido) nudus in Pario
1 The HIermesis the frontispiece to engraving of the satyr, ibid. p. 41. a second volume of the l7r. H.xxxvi. 28. Overbeck's GePlin. Edit. An 8chichte der Gr. Plastik, 3rd

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colonia Propontidis.' The late Dr. Stark 1 wrote a valuable paper on this passage, maintaining that the nudus probably refers rather to the absence of the customary bow and arrow, than to absence of drapery. The same writer wished to connect with this passage of Pliny an epigram of Palladas in the Anthology 2 which runs:Tu,vb<S "Epeov, 3ta TOVTO 7eXa Ks} ~elX\vos ecTn
ov ryap ~e~ yodovrKca r?j I.Lv 7yap yalav
Tn

~rTepoevTa ~e

B3 XV7. e'e~.

ovSe ixeriTv 7ra\a,X/<s ia:eae

8e\fXqlvaical avoq,

daaava'a

Stark considers it probable, though he has not proved, that this epigram refers to the statue at Parium, and that this statue held a dolphin and a flower in the two hands. And in this opinion he is followed by Overbeck. It does not appear to me that so elaborate and defined a symbolism is quite in the style of Praxiteles, but rather belongs to Hellenistic times. We are, however, spared the discussion of this a priori question by the existence of positive evidence of what the Parian Eros was like. There is a whole series of coins struck at Parium, by a succession of Emperors from Antoninus Pius down to Philip, on the reverse of which appears a figure of Eros, which is so uniform in character on all of them, as to leave no doubt that it must be copied from a work of sculpture. For when on coins of the imperial Greek class, we find a type consistently preserwed in all its details for centuries, we can scarcely avoid supposing that the die-cutters had the original of the type constantly before them in sculptural form. And as the figure on our Parian coins is decidedly Praxitelean in pose, there is no reason to reject the natural and obvious supposition that the celebrated statue from which they are copied is the noted work mentioned by Pliny.3 It is true that on the coins we find no trace of the dolphin
1 Berichte der k. Sachs. Ges.d. liiss. 1866. 2 Anth. Gr. III. p. 133, No. 94. 3 One of these coins was published by Rauch in the Berliner Blatter, 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 fiur Numismatik, vol. viii.)

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A STATUETTE OF EROS.

or the flower, which according to the theory of Stark the Parian Eros ought to carry in his hands. And although the die-cutters might consider a flower too small an object to copy on the small field of a coin, yet they could scarcely have thought this of the more bulky dolphin. Therefore it seems likely that the Eros copied by them did not carry these two attributes. But this will scarcely be sufficient to prove that the Eros of the coins is not the Eros of Praxiteles, for the theory of Stark, though able and ingenious, was but a theory, and must give way before the weight of positive evidence. We do not consider it rash to assert that our coins portray the Parian Eros; and that he certainly did not carry a dolphin, though he may perhaps have borne a flower. I have put together on a plate all the specimens of this class of coin of which my numismatic friends have been good enough to send me casts; they are as follows :,Legend. pjate&
1

Emperor.

Museum.

COL ' GEM * IVL * HAD * PA * DEO? CVPIDJNI ................................... C 'G *I *H *P .............................. ,, ..............................

Antoninns Pius Berlin (Rauch) ,, ,, ,, ,, Irahoof. Paris (Wiczay).

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

As No. 1 ....................................... Obscure ........ C * G * I * H *P C * G * I * H * PA ...................... DEO CYPIDINI DEO CVPIDINI

Commodus ... Copenhagen. Severus Alexander......... Otacilia ....... Berlin. Milan.

Philip, Junior Paris (Cousinery). Antoninus Pius British Museum.

*G ' I * H * P ..............................

Eros constitutes the type of all these coins but the last, which is added merely for illustration.1 He stands facing the spectator,
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,

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271

his head turned somewhat upwards and to the right. His right hand is extended empty, and a light chlamys falls on his left side. In the position of the left hand there seems to be a variation. On the coins struck under Antoninus (1-3) this appears to be raised, but does not, as Rauch supposed, grasp the top of the chlamys. On later coins it rests against the side of the deity. In spite of this variety, the cause of which is obscure, it is evident that in all cases there is an intention to portray the same statue, and even a cursory inspection of the coins will show how very closely that original resembled the terra-cotta under discussion. Allowing for the slight liberties in dealing with perspective to which we are quite accustomed in the case of coins, the resemblances are very striking; both arms are in nearly the same position on the coins and in the terra-cotta; and the hands are alike in the absence or apparent absence of attributes; the legs are in the same pose, and the weight of the body falls in the same line; the head too is turned in the same direction, though the twist is, as is often the case, somewhat exaggerated on the coins. But a few important differences appear. The first is in the wings, which are far longer on the coins than in the statuette; but the fragile nature of the material quite accounts, in case of the latter, for the abbreviation of the wings. The second difference is more notable and of more moment. Whereas on the coins Eros wears no drapery save a short chlamys hanging over his left arm, in the statuette on the contrary he wears a nebris over his shoulder. Pliny's expression nudus applies particularly well to the figure of the coins; and the way in which there the chlamys hangs down reminds us of the drapery of the celebrated Hermes from Olympia, of that of the Cnidian Aphrodite and other statues of the Praxitelean school. We can scarcely doubt that the coins reproduce accurately the Parian statue in the matter of drapery as in other respects. If so, it follows that the maker of our statuette, adhering to the Praxitelean model in other respects, innovated in the matter of drapery. What his reason for doing so may have been, remains doubtful. What he has done is remarkable. It is rather hard to say whether he intended to
and so cannot be an archaicsimulacrum of Eros. Its constant introduction on the coins shows however that it stood near the statue of Praxiteles.

272

ASTATUETTE

OF EROS.

a nebris ora chlamys; the substance of the garment portray the left side lookslike leather and the ends hanging down on havethe general appearance of goat's feet.J But on closer

examination the likeness to a nebris diminishes, and the fold over the chest, on the upper Iine of the garment seems to indicate a light rather than a stiff substance. Is it possible
1 Eros wears a nebfis mn the group at Brocklesby House. Michaelis, .nc. de Sc. Marbles, No. 90, Clarac, MusMe iv. 690, 1626.

A STATUETTEOF EROS.

273

therefore, that our artist intended to clothe his Eros in a chlamys, and that the likeness to a nebris is accidental ? Let us now turn to a remarkable terra-cotta from the Gr6au collection,supposed tocome from Smyrna,and published byH. Froehher1 (see woodcut opposite). In it we have a figure of Eros very closely like that now published. In the position of his head, of both his arms, and of both his legs, he is exactly alike in both statuettes: but in the Gr6au specimen he is crowned with ivy, and holds in his left hand three quinces, in his right hand he holds the end of a chlamys or other garment which passes over the left shoulder without being fastened there, and is held in position by weights of lead at the end.2 Within the chlamys so held are grapes and fruits. This disposition of drapery is most peculiar, and even unnatural. And the curious thing is that though the motive of the drapery is quite different from that prevailing in the Princess of Wales' statuette, yet the superficial likeness is complete. Long ends hang down Eros' left side in both statuettes, and indeed in the statue on the coins as well. We have, then, three distinct types; in which attitude and type of body are retained, but drapery and motive are varied. And all alike are derived from a Praxitelean original. Surely this is an interesting, as well as a somewhat startling fact in the history of Greek art. We find a Praxitelean type ruling, but every artist who adopts it seems at liberty to introduce his own variations, and to give his own interpretation. And these are exactly the facts which in the opinion of M. Froehner are observable in case of the terra-cottas of Asia Minor generally. He remarks over and over again alike the license in innovation on established types to be found in them, and their general Praxitelean character. And Praxitelean influence is not less observable, as I have elsewhere remarked,3 in the types on the coins of Greek Kings of the East. I cannot now follow further this line of observation, which might, if pursued, lead to interesting results. The evidence, for and against, being duly weighed, there
1 Terres cuites d'.4sie Min., P1. xxxii. 2 M. Froehner thus describes the dress: ' Sa draperie n'a pas d'agrafes, et ne tient pas sur l'epaule; les glands de plomb, fixes aux extremites l'emp8chent seuls de tomber et font contrepoids.' 3 'special influence in Asia of the School of Praxiteles,' Types qf Greek Coizn, p. 209.

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A STATUETTE OF EROS.

seems to me to be sufficient ground for supposing that the statuette of Eros is a copy of the Parian statue of that deity of Praxiteles; and in spite of certain variations and a certain want of dignity, it may serve to give us some idea of the great The Parian statue was not indeed the most masterpiece. He made celebrated of the figures of Eros made by Praxiteles. a statue of the god for the people of Thespiae which was very We may hope that something far more celebrated in antiquity. has been done in the present paper to set archaeologists on the road to the discovery of copies of this splendid work. We have the Hermes of Praxiteles. We have copies of his Apollo Sauroctonus, his Satyr, his Cnidian Aphrodite, and perhaps of others of his statues. Very much has been lately done in the recovery of traces of his work in existing statues; and if the process goes on, we may hope some day to have as clear an idea of his style as we have of those of Canova and Thorwaldsen.1 PERCY GARDNER. 1 Sincethis paper wasin type I have received from the kindness of Prof. Michaelisa copyof Dr. Bursian's tract
Ie Cupidine Praxitelis Pariano, as

well as several important references by which I have been much aided. Dr. Bursianfully agreeswith me that the epigram of Palladasdoes not refer to the statueat Parium; andhe anticipates myview that the figurepresented on the coin of AntoninusPius, No. 1 of the plate, the only specimenknown to him, is a copy of this statue. He remarks that on the coin the head or Eros is turned upwardsas if he were watching some one descendingfrom

heaven, or listening to a voice from above. Also that the right hand of Erosis stretched out to signifythat heawaitsthe worship of mankind, andhis left graspsthe top of his chlamys. Thesesuggestionsarevaluable; but I cannot fully accept them,as I regard the positionof the headon the coin as a natural renderingin relief of the attitudeof the headof the ten'a-cotta; and I do not think that the left hand graspsanything,thoughthe bad state of thecoin makesthis uncertain. The period to which Bursian, with the of Overbeck,assigns the approbation Parian statue is about B.C.340.