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Lot Essay
PUBLISHED:
Exhibition catalogue, Exposición de Arte Histórico: Celebrada por la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de la Provincia de Granada en Junio de 1912, Granada, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de la Provincia de Granada, 1912, pp. 6&10.
Mariano Téllez Girón y Beaufort Spontin (1814-1882), 12th Duke of Osuna, led a military and diplomatic career as the Knight of the Spanish Order of Toisón de Oro. As Ambassador he attended Queen Victoria's coronation and Napoleon III's marriage to Eugenia de Montijo, and was based in Saint Petersburg from 1856-1862. There, he was known for his extravagant parties attended by all Russian nobility which caused the ruin of his great fortune and led him to auction most of his property.
Don Fernando de Contreras and Doña Francisca Pérez de Herrasti bought the piece from this auction. Advised by their nephew Joaquín Pérez del Pulgar, who would later become Director General de Bellas Artes and a patron of the Museo del Prado, they filled their mansion, now the Facultad de Traducción e Interpretación at the Universidad de Granada, with an important collection of antiquities and contemporary paintings of the Golden Age of Granada.
Cf. A. Stewart, Greek Sculpture, New Haven & London, 1990, pp. 267-268, pl. 400, for a similar herm from Pergamon, a Roman copy of the famous sculpture, the Hermes Propylaios (Hermes Before-the-Gates) which stood at the entrance of the Acropolis at Athens. This original was made by the Greek sculptor Alkamenes of Athens in the second half of the 5th Century B.C. and is known from literary descriptions.
In Ancient Greece, the god Hermes was associated with fertility, luck, roads and borders. He became a patron of markets, merchants, travellers and athletes. His name is thought to derive from the Greek word herma, a boundary stone. Herms such as this one were often placed at strategic points alongside roads, outside houses, gymnasia, and markets to ensure the fertility of herds and flocks and to bring luck.
Exhibition catalogue, Exposición de Arte Histórico: Celebrada por la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de la Provincia de Granada en Junio de 1912, Granada, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de la Provincia de Granada, 1912, pp. 6&10.
Mariano Téllez Girón y Beaufort Spontin (1814-1882), 12th Duke of Osuna, led a military and diplomatic career as the Knight of the Spanish Order of Toisón de Oro. As Ambassador he attended Queen Victoria's coronation and Napoleon III's marriage to Eugenia de Montijo, and was based in Saint Petersburg from 1856-1862. There, he was known for his extravagant parties attended by all Russian nobility which caused the ruin of his great fortune and led him to auction most of his property.
Don Fernando de Contreras and Doña Francisca Pérez de Herrasti bought the piece from this auction. Advised by their nephew Joaquín Pérez del Pulgar, who would later become Director General de Bellas Artes and a patron of the Museo del Prado, they filled their mansion, now the Facultad de Traducción e Interpretación at the Universidad de Granada, with an important collection of antiquities and contemporary paintings of the Golden Age of Granada.
Cf. A. Stewart, Greek Sculpture, New Haven & London, 1990, pp. 267-268, pl. 400, for a similar herm from Pergamon, a Roman copy of the famous sculpture, the Hermes Propylaios (Hermes Before-the-Gates) which stood at the entrance of the Acropolis at Athens. This original was made by the Greek sculptor Alkamenes of Athens in the second half of the 5th Century B.C. and is known from literary descriptions.
In Ancient Greece, the god Hermes was associated with fertility, luck, roads and borders. He became a patron of markets, merchants, travellers and athletes. His name is thought to derive from the Greek word herma, a boundary stone. Herms such as this one were often placed at strategic points alongside roads, outside houses, gymnasia, and markets to ensure the fertility of herds and flocks and to bring luck.