The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 22, 2024

Circular Altar with Hermes and Pallas Athena

Circular Altar with Hermes and Pallas Athena

100 BCE–100 CE
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

Beyond the twelve Olympian deities, Greeks and Romans worshipped numerous other gods and goddesses.

Description

Preserving two figures (plus a faint foot) striding across a curving surface, this fragment constitutes approximately 1/6th of a large circular altar or statue base. Its full circumference accommodated 12 figures—likely the Olympian deities. Athena—with spear, helmet, and stylized aegis, or breastplate—is with either the smith god Hephaistos, holding a hammer, or the messenger god Hermes, with his staff. Now lost are Zeus, Poseidon, Demeter, and others. The eclectic carving style includes stylized drapery with zigzag and swallowtail folds, recalling the Archaic period (600–480 BC), on tall and slender figures characteristic of later times.
  • 1760-1830
    Nani Collection, Venice, Italy
    -1915
    Harold Woodbury Parsons, Sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    1915-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Oh
  • Eldridge, L. G. "Classical Marbles in the Museum." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 6, no. 3 (1919): 43-63. Reproduced: p. 41; Mentioned: pp. 44-45 www.jstor.org
    Schmidt, Eduard. Archaistische Kunst in Griechenland und Rom. München: B. Heller, 1922. pp. 24-25, pl. 10,2.
    Chase, George Henry. Greek and Roman Sculpture in American Collections. Harvard University Press, 1924. P. 153, Fig. 184.
    Bieber, Margarete. "Roman Sculpture in the Cleveland Museum of Art," Art in America Vol. 32 No. 2 (April 1944). Pp. 65-83. Ill. p. 69 Fig. 2.
    Fuchs, Werner. Die Vorbilder der neuattischen Reliefs (Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, Erganzungsheft 20). De Gruyter, 1959. Pp. 47, 126, 174, no. 4.
    Bieber, Margarete. The Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961. Pp. 185-186, Fig. 805.
    Long, Charlotte R.. The Twelve Gods of Greece and Rome. Germany: E.J. Brill, 1987. Pp. 46, 245-247, 281, 282, Fig. 127.
  • Stories From Storage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 7-May 16, 2021).
  • {{cite web|title=Circular Altar with Hermes and Pallas Athena|url=false|author=|year=100 BCE–100 CE|access-date=22 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1915.559