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

This impressive life-sized figure of Mercury depicts him standing with youthful vitality and grace, with his weight on his right leg, with the left leg bent at the knee. He is nude but for a chlamys draped around his chest and shoulders, fastened with a round fibula on his right shoulder, falling down the back and extending across his left forearm. That Mercury is depicted is confirmed by the remains of the caduceus along the folds of the drapery and on the upper arm and his money bag just resting on the top of the tree-trunk support on the right. His musculature is well defined and conveyed with sensitivity and a clear understanding of a young, nude body. The lack of pubic hair indicates his youthfulness. Two large struts join the long excess of drapery to his left thigh and lower leg.

Numerous depictions of Mercury show him with similar drapery and with various attributes. All are Roman creations thought to be based on either Phidian or Polykleitan prototypes, of the mid-4th century B.C. See G. Siebert, "Hermes", LIMC V, 1990, p. 364, no. 925, for a fragmentary statue, now in the Capitoline Museum (inv. no. 1435), believed to have been a copy of the statue of Hermes by Phidias which stood alongside a statue of Athena by Skopas, in the Temple of Apollo Ismenios at Thebes. Both statues were still standing at the Temple complex, when the Greek geographer and writer Pausanias visited in the 2nd Century A.D. Further statues of Mercury wearing his chlamys draped across his chest and shoulders, can be found in the Vatican (op. cit. LIMC. no. 915); the National Antiquities Museum, Algeria (Arachne no: 1060601); the Antikensammlung Berlin (Arachne no: 1121760); and the Archaeological Museum, Seville (Arachne no: 1115906). Although all these examples show that this statue type was found all over the Roman empire, the Greek crystalline marble would suggest a Western Asia Minor or Greek Island workshop. This strong, virile statue-type was also adapted by the Romans for Imperial portraits and for use in funerary contexts, where the god's attributes would be excluded.

Mercury was the god of travelers, doctors, merchants, and commerce as well as acting as the messenger for the gods and the guide of souls to the underworld. The worship of Mercury began in the Roman republic around the 4th Century B.C., incorporating some of the attributes of the native Etruscan god Turms. In other parts of the empire, he would be associated with local deities - Anubis in Egypt and Odin in Gaul for example; quickly becoming one of the most popular gods in the Roman pantheon. The caduceus was a symbol of his power, sometimes shown with wings and entwined with two snakes – symbols of his speed and divinity. According to Homer, he was given the caduceus by Apollo in return for inventing the lyre. The money bag that he would have held in his lowered right hand represents his role as the god of merchants, trading, and commerce. It is easy to see why wealthy Romans would want to commission a statue of this popular, charismatic god to grace their villa or gardens. The size would certainly suggest a private, rather than public, use for this marble.

Many life-size statues such as this were bought to fill the grand country houses of Europe and in particular England. As the craze for classical art and sculpture swept over Britain, Rome established itself as the center to which English milordi flocked in pursuit of culture and souvenirs. Adolf Michaelis, the renowned German historian of ancient art, called this period the 'Golden Age of Classic Dilettantism' remarking: "In an unintermitting stream the ancient marbles of Rome poured into the palaces of the aristocracy in Britain whose wealth in some cases afforded the means of gratifying real artistic taste by these rare possessions, and in others enabled them at any rate to fall into the new fashion of dilettantism, the 'furore' for ancient art". Notable sculptors of the day were employed to restore and enhance, such as Bartolomeo Cavaceppi, Piranesi and Joseph Nollekens. It is interesting to note a remarkably similar statue of Mercury, published by Cavaceppi in his Raccolta as residing in England. It shows a comparable long fold of drapery down the left side and the prominent money bag, with the small points at the base, held low down, seemingly in front of the trunk support (Raccolta d'antiche statue busti bassirilievi ed altre sculture, vol. I, 1768, pl. 43).

SYDNEY J LAMON (1897-1973)

Sydney J. Lamon was a New York City financier and diamond merchant, avid collector, and patron of the arts, with a passion for continental porcelain, gold boxes and objects d'art. In his office at 529 Fifth Avenue, alongside a large display of gold boxes and Renaissance jewels, stood this arresting Roman marble statue of Mercury, purchased prior to 1973 from the well-known collector and Madison Avenue dealer J.J. Klejman, it was one of only a handful of antiquities in his collection. The celebrated Lamon collection was dispersed through various Christie's sales in London, between 1973-1975. In a New York Times write-up on 3rd December 1973, after one of the sales, it was reported that: "Among the items was a pair of Chantilly porcelain Louis XV ormolu eastern figures that fetched more than $190,000. The figures were sold at Christie's for little more than $4,000 in 1938...Impressionist paintings from the collection, which Mr. Lamon had assembled in his Fifth Avenue apartment, will be auctioned this week. So far items from the collection disposed of since the first sale was held in June have realized more than $4‐million". He was married to German-American novelist Heidi Loewengard (1914-1981), who wrote under the pen-names Martha Albrand, Katrin Holland and Christine Lambert.