A LATE HELLENISTIC or ROMAN BRONZE GROUP

CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.-1ST CENTURY A.D.

Details

A LATE HELLENISTIC or ROMAN BRONZE GROUP
CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.-1ST CENTURY A.D.
Depicting Cupid and Psyche embracing in a boat on the sea, the pair reclining on pillows and partially enveloped in a mantle, Psyche with her torso bare, her head thrown back, her arms around Cupid's neck, Cupid with his wings outstretched, the boat's prow in the form of a swan's head, the rippling waves of the sea teeming with fish
9 1/8 in. (23.2 cm.) long

Provenance

Münzen und Medaillen, Basel, 13 December 1969, lot 148.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 5 July 1982, lot 388.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 11 July 1988, lot 43.
with Royal-Athena Galleries, New York, 1988 (The Age of Cleopatra, no. 82).

Literature

C.C. Vermeule and J.M. Eisenberg, Catalogue of the Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Bronzes in the Collection of John Kluge, New York and Boston, 1992, no. 88-63.

Lot Essay

According to Vermeule and Eisenberg (op. cit.), "the subject is very rare, if not unique, in bronze and is better paralleled in Pompeiian painting or in so-called Campana and other terracotta architectural plaques. This ensemble anticipates the various adventures of Eros, with and without Psyche, on Roman marble sarcophagi of the Second and Third Century A.D. The architectural plaques and the lids of sarcophagai usually show such Erotes in their boats on the river Nile."

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