terracotta Donatello's Eros

terracotta Donatello's Eros

1984

New

Terracotta statue, faithful copy of Donatello's Heros exhibited at the Bargello Museum in Florence. Made in Italy. On request it can be patinated in "Bronze" style with a supplement of € 170.00 including VAT.

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1 500,00 €



Data sheet


Height 41.73 in 106 cm
Width 15.75 in 40 cm
Depth 11.02 in 28 cm
Manufacturing Toscana Made in Italy
Material Terracotta
Museum where the Original is exhibited Museo del Bargello Firenze

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The love
Between 1440 and 1443 Donatello created a particular bronze sculpture, conventionally called "Amore-Attis". This name refers to the deity Attis (God of Asia Minor origin) because of the pants open on the genitals, an iconographic element typical of this deity. According to the interpretation of C. Del Bravo, an art historian, it would instead be the representation of a demon of eros.
In fact, the figure presents the typical characteristics of Eros, as told by Plato in the "Myth of the birth of Eros" (Symposium, 203). According to the myth, Eros is the son of poverty (Penia) and desire (Poros), and shows the characters of both. Love shows the faunal tail, the torn and worn sandals of the homeless and the gaze turned upward, towards the good he desires. However, it is not Eros himself, but an Eros, a love that shows the characters of two other divinities who created him: Hermes and Aphrodite. Of Hermes she has wings on her feet, pants and perhaps poppies on her belt, of Aphrodite she has the flower on her forehead, which is not a rose since it has four petals instead of five. These two deities identify him in turn with eloquence and beauty, making him "Hermaphrodite", as the son of Hermes ("herm-") and Aphrodite ("-phrodite"). Donatello underlines his being a demon in his nudity, which presents the figure as sincere and pure but also chaste, because despite the exposed sex the poppies on the belt indicate the sleep of the senses, and therefore his resisting the carnal impulses. He is a benign figure because he crushes the insidious snake with his feet, while with his hands he is playing an imaginary harp, enjoying the sound it produces and arousing the harmony of the whole, which also includes the snare of the snake. The figure, thus placed, acts as an intermediary between the baseness of the earth and the altitude of the heavens, between terrestrial ignorance and divine wisdom.


 

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