Statuette of Eros
Arbeid, Barbara, and Mario Iozzo. Piccoli grandi bronzi: Capolavori greci, etruschi e romani delle Collezioni Mediceo-Lorenesi nel Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze. Firenze: Polistampa, 2015.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. 8 vols. Zurich: Artemis, 1981–97.
Liebundgut, Annelis. Die Römischen Bronzen der Schweiz, III, Westschweiz Bern und Wallis. 2 vols. Mainz am Rhein: Verlag P. von Zabern, 1980.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Catalogue of the Edith A. and Percy S. Straus Collection. Houston: The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1945, 31, no. 55.
Richter, Gisela. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Greek, Etruscan and Roman Bronzes. New York: Gilliss, 1915.
Rolland, Henri. Bronzes Antiques de Haute Provence. Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1965.
Walters, H. B. Catalogue of the Bronzes, Greek, Roman, and Etruscan, in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum. London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1899.
Provenance[Jacob Hirsch (1874–1955), New York]; bought by Percy S. Straus on January 18, 1934; bequeathed to MFAH, 1944.This tiny winged figure is of Eros (Cupid), the Roman god of love, in solid cast bronze, standing with his left leg forward, looking upward to his left. His hair is tied into a topknot at front. The left arm and hand are raised; the right hand is broken off at the wrist. It may be supposed that the figure originally held something in his left hand. There is a small hole, perhaps for a pin, in the right wing. The surface is pitted.
This little bronze is the only antiquity in the collection of sculptures given to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, by Percy and Edith Straus. A minor piece, it does not suggest any great interest in antiquities on the part of the Strauses. It may have been acquired by Percy Straus to provide a context for his Renaissance bronzes, several of which are derived to greater or lesser extents from Greek and Roman classical models. The bronze depicts Cupid (Greek Eros), the son of Venus and the god of love, who appears in the plaquettes from Riccio’s workshop depicting Venus Chastising Cupid (cat. 56, 44.595) and Vulcan Forging the Wings of Cupid (cat. 57, 44.596).
Among similar small statuettes of Eros, there are two in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Florence, in both of which the god strides forward.1 In both cases the raised right hand is now broken off, making it difficult to know precisely what the iconography of the figures would originally have been. In these small statuettes, Eros generally holds an object, often a bow or a torch. In, for example, a slightly larger and more complete statuette of the subject in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, he holds the socket of a torch in his left hand and a vine branch in the right.2 Other small bronze statuettes of this kind show Eros dancing.3
Numerous further similar small figures of Eros survive in museum collections, for example the Musée Calvet, Avignon,4 British Museum, London,5 and in the Schweizerisches Landesmuseum, Zurich.6
The vendor of the bronze, Jacob Hirsch, was a German-born dealer in numismatics and antiquities, who left Germany at the outbreak of World War I and settled in Switzerland, where he set up the dealership Ars Classica based in Lucerne and Geneva. After the end of the war, he was for much of the time based in Paris and in New York, where he had a close relationship with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and also helped the museums in Cleveland, Kansas City, and Philadelphia to build their collections of antiquities.
—Jeremy Warren
Notes
1. Invs. 2376 and 2510. Barbara Arbeid and Mario Iozzo, Piccoli grandi bronzi: Capolavori greci, etruschi e romani delle Collezioni Mediceo-Lorenesi nel Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze (Firenze: Polistampa, 2015),86–87, nos. 35–36.
2. Gisela Richter, The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greek, Etruscan and Roman Bronzes (New York: The Gilliss Press, 1915), 119–20, no. 228.
3. See an example in the Musée Borély, Marseille, Inv. 2259. Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, vol. 3 (Zurich: Artemis, 1986), 1011, no. 479.
4. Inv. J 138. Henri Rolland, Bronzes Antiques de Haute Provence (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1965), 73, no. 112.
5. H. B. Walters, Catalogue of the Bronzes, Greek, Roman, and Etruscan, in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1899), 200–201, nos. 1140–41.
6. Inv. 22060. Annelis Liebundgut, Die Römischen Bronzen der Schweiz, III, Westschweiz Bern und Wallis (Mainz am Rhein: Verlag P. von Zabern, 1980), 37, no. 30, Taf. 35.