A ROMAN MARBLE JANIFORM HERM HEAD

CIRCA 2ND CENTURY A.D.

Details

A ROMAN MARBLE JANIFORM HERM HEAD
CIRCA 2ND CENTURY A.D.
Both heads depicting a youthful male with large eyes beneath arching brows, the ears prominent, the lips pressed together, the hair a mass of tight curls, with small wings above the forehead, the roughened surface indicating that the sculpture was unfinished
13 in. (33 cm.) wide

Provenance

with Mythes et Legendes, Paris, 1987.
Art Market, Germany, 2003.

Lot Essay

The presence of wings in the hair suggests that Mercury was intended, and indeed the god was the most common subject for herms. However, it has been proposed that these janiform heads could be the brothers Sleep and Death-- Hypnos and Thanatos to the Greeks and Somnus and Thanatus (also called Mors or Letus) to the Romans.

For the unfinished surface compare the portrait of Domitian in the Getty Villa, no. 35 in E.R. Varner, ed., From Caligula to Constantine, Tyranny & Transformation in Roman Portraiture.

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