Advanced Search 
View: In situ
Male torso (Mercury?)
Roman
Imperial Period
1st half of the 1st century A.D.
Medium/Technique
Marble from Mount Pentelikon near Athens
Dimensions
Overall: 120 x 58 x 30 cm (47 1/4 x 22 13/16 x 11 13/16 in.)
Credit Line
Henry Lillie Pierce Fund
Accession Number01.8190
CollectionsAncient Greece and Rome
ClassificationsSculpture
The naturalistic representation of the human form, especially the nude male body, was perhaps the greatest achievement of Greek art, dominating Classical sculpture from the fifth century B.C. into the Roman period. These two statues demonstrate how popular representational formats, known as sculpture types, were appreciated, adapted, and replicated throughout antiquity.
The marble torso seen here, a work of the Roman period, was heavily influenced by one of the most fa-mous sculptures of antiquity, the Doryphoros (Spear Bearer) by Polykleitos (see fig. 2, p. 14), a prominent Greek artist of the fifth century B.C., who wrote a treatise on the proportions of the human body, known as the Canon. The swing of the hips and slope of the shoulders animate this torso, imbuing the figure with a realistic liveliness. The sculpture is thought to represent Mercury (the Greek Hermes), the messenger of the gods, a popular subject for later adaptations of the Doryphoros type; the herald's staff was an easy substitute for the spear held by the right arm of the Polykleitan original.
This lower body of a youth was cast in bronze by an artist of the Roman period. Following a trend set by statuary of the late Classical and early Hellenistic periods, the figure, seen here from the rear, was sculp-ted fully in the round and was intended to reward views from all angles. The malleability, light weight, and high tensile strength of hollow-cast bronze offered greatly expanded possibilities for the sculptural representation of the human body, in terms of both dynamic three-dimensional modeling and the suggestion of movement.
The marble torso seen here, a work of the Roman period, was heavily influenced by one of the most fa-mous sculptures of antiquity, the Doryphoros (Spear Bearer) by Polykleitos (see fig. 2, p. 14), a prominent Greek artist of the fifth century B.C., who wrote a treatise on the proportions of the human body, known as the Canon. The swing of the hips and slope of the shoulders animate this torso, imbuing the figure with a realistic liveliness. The sculpture is thought to represent Mercury (the Greek Hermes), the messenger of the gods, a popular subject for later adaptations of the Doryphoros type; the herald's staff was an easy substitute for the spear held by the right arm of the Polykleitan original.
This lower body of a youth was cast in bronze by an artist of the Roman period. Following a trend set by statuary of the late Classical and early Hellenistic periods, the figure, seen here from the rear, was sculp-ted fully in the round and was intended to reward views from all angles. The malleability, light weight, and high tensile strength of hollow-cast bronze offered greatly expanded possibilities for the sculptural representation of the human body, in terms of both dynamic three-dimensional modeling and the suggestion of movement.
Catalogue Raisonné
Sculpture in Stone (MFA), no. 142; Sculpture in Stone and Bronze (MFA), p. 111 (additional published references); Highlights: Classical Art (MFA), p. 164-165.
DescriptionThe large-scale male torso bears the weight of the body on the left leg; the right hip swings outwards. As a result of this contrapposto stance, the left hip, left buttock and right shoulder are slightly lowered and the spinal column curves in an S-shape to the right.
Condition: Breaks along the bottom of the neck, right upper arm, left arm above the elbow, genitalia, and left knee and right thigh. Remnant of a strut visible on the back of the right thigh. Veins and inclusions in the marble. Surface mottled with pale brown stains and gashes throughout.
Condition: Breaks along the bottom of the neck, right upper arm, left arm above the elbow, genitalia, and left knee and right thigh. Remnant of a strut visible on the back of the right thigh. Veins and inclusions in the marble. Surface mottled with pale brown stains and gashes throughout.
ProvenancePossibly by 1726, Francesco Trevisan (b. 1658 - d. 1732), Venice [see note 1]; 1732, by inheritance to his nephews, children of Soretta Trevisan and Giovanni Suarez; 1808, by inheritance to Angelo I Giacomo Giustiniani Recanati (b. 1757 - d. 1813), Palazzo alle Zattere, Venice; by 1847, possibly still in Giustiniani collection, Venice [see note 2]. By 1901, purchased in Rome by Edward Perry Warren (b. 1860 - d. 1928), London; 1901, sold by Edward Perry Warren to the MFA. (Accession Date: December 1, 1901)
Notes:
[1] See Irene Favaretto, Arte Antica e Cultura Antiquaria nelle Collezioni Venete al Tempo della Serenissima (Rome, 1990), p. 380, pl. 55, showing an engraved illustration of this torso, then in the form of a full-length figure, in a 1726 publication of the Trevisan collection (Museo Trevisan catalogue, no. 43, “Figura apollinea in piedi a braccia aperte, con tronco presso la gamba destra”), which Favaretto identifies as the MFA object. It is difficult to securely identify this torso with the work in the Trevisan collection in part due to earlier restorations present in the 18th century that have since been removed. The torso may correspond to a torso mentioned in Verona Illustrata vol. III (1732), p.367, by Scipione Mafeii. According to Edward Perry Warren’s records, the torso was said to come from Venice, without naming a specific location.
[2] The torso may have remained in the collection, Venice, as late as 1847 since a torso described as Bacchus with locks of hair reaching the shoulders appears in the Palazzo alle Zattere in the travel journal Reisen in Italien seit 1822 (1826), p.258, and a torso described as Meleager is also mentioned as being there in a publication on Venetian history and society, Venezia e le sue lagune (1847), pp. 479-480. No other description allows to securely identify those torsos with the MFA piece. It is unclear when the Trevisan-Giustiniani collection was sold (on the dispersal of the collection, see Favaretto 1990 (as above, n. 1), pp. 193-195). Acquisitions of portraits from the collection by the Glyptotek in Copenhagen in 1887 and statues by the Antikensammlung in Berlin in 1897 suggest the dispersal of the collection around this time, although it may have occurred earlier.
Notes:
[1] See Irene Favaretto, Arte Antica e Cultura Antiquaria nelle Collezioni Venete al Tempo della Serenissima (Rome, 1990), p. 380, pl. 55, showing an engraved illustration of this torso, then in the form of a full-length figure, in a 1726 publication of the Trevisan collection (Museo Trevisan catalogue, no. 43, “Figura apollinea in piedi a braccia aperte, con tronco presso la gamba destra”), which Favaretto identifies as the MFA object. It is difficult to securely identify this torso with the work in the Trevisan collection in part due to earlier restorations present in the 18th century that have since been removed. The torso may correspond to a torso mentioned in Verona Illustrata vol. III (1732), p.367, by Scipione Mafeii. According to Edward Perry Warren’s records, the torso was said to come from Venice, without naming a specific location.
[2] The torso may have remained in the collection, Venice, as late as 1847 since a torso described as Bacchus with locks of hair reaching the shoulders appears in the Palazzo alle Zattere in the travel journal Reisen in Italien seit 1822 (1826), p.258, and a torso described as Meleager is also mentioned as being there in a publication on Venetian history and society, Venezia e le sue lagune (1847), pp. 479-480. No other description allows to securely identify those torsos with the MFA piece. It is unclear when the Trevisan-Giustiniani collection was sold (on the dispersal of the collection, see Favaretto 1990 (as above, n. 1), pp. 193-195). Acquisitions of portraits from the collection by the Glyptotek in Copenhagen in 1887 and statues by the Antikensammlung in Berlin in 1897 suggest the dispersal of the collection around this time, although it may have occurred earlier.