Group of Aphrodite, Pan and Eros
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The Group of Aphrodite, Pan and Eros is a Hellenistic sculpture of marble , which now in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens is.
The slightly below life-size, 1.55 meter high group of statues shows the naked Greek goddess Aphrodite . She has taken off her clothes down to her right sandal - apparently for a bath - and also tied her hair up in waves on the left-facing head. The weight rests on the right standing leg , the left leg is loose and slightly bent. Next to the goddess of love is the smaller shepherd and nature god Pan , depicted with two long and pointed horns, a face covered with fur and furry legs that end in goat hooves. His left leg is connected up to the buttocks with a support in the form of a tree stump, customary for marble sculptures. With his left arm, Pan grabs Aphrodite's left arm, which she uses to hide her gender. The head tilted to the left and turned sideways to the viewer looks at Aphrodite and shows a wide, lascivious laugh. The limb is no longer there, but it can be assumed that it was shown erect. The muscular body and protruding veins also illustrate the animal nature of the god. Pan is probably trying to get Aphrodite to engage in sexual acts that she is hostile to. The goddess does not seem to be appalled by this request, she seems to take it in a rather humorous way. She shows no signs of fear, but has raised her bent right arm threateningly, in which she is holding her second sandal. With this she threatens Pan half seriously, half jokingly. Between the two figures, level with Aphrodite's shoulder and slightly above Pan's head, hovers a small winged Eros . He tries to push back his mother's adversary and grabs Pan's right horn with his left arm. The statue combines the heroic nudity , represented by the goddess, and the wild, animalistic, Dionysian nudity that Pan embodies.
The right arm of the goddess and the upper part of the head, as well as the legs and left arm of Eros, were reattached after they were broken off. The right arm of Eros is missing. Pan's right leg and horns also had to be reattached. Three fingers of the left hand and the middle finger of the right hand of Aphrodite were modernized with plaster of paris. The original plinth and the flat, rectangular statue base of the group have also been preserved. There is a Greek inscription on the base :
- Διονύσιος Ζήνωνος τοῦ Θεοδώρου
- Βηρύτιος, εὐεργέτης, ὐπὲρ ἑαυτοῦ
- καὶ τῶν τέκνων, θεοῖς πατρίοις.
- "Dionysios from Berytos , son of Zenon and grandson of Theodoros, (donates the statue) as benefactor of the ancestral gods for himself and his children."
The group of statues made of Parian marble was found in 1904 in the house of the Poseidonians of Berytos on the island of Delos . Today the group is in room 30 of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. Hellenistic work is dated around 100 BC. Dated.
Jeff Koons quotes the group of statues in his work "Antiquity 1".
literature
- Nikolaos Kaltsas : Sculpture in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens , The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles 2002 ISBN 0-89236-686-9 , pp. 294-295
