CIRCA 2ND CENTURY A.D.

This bronze belongs to a distinctive type, typically manufactured in two parts, of which only the upper half is preserved. The youthful god is depicted with his right arm outstretched, and his left fist closed around a now-missing attribute. His soft facial features are framed by tight curls resting on his shoulders, and his head is crowned with a laurel wreath. He wears an Eastern-style fringed garment, with three tassels that fall over his left shoulder, and an armlet on his left upper-arm.

The identity of this statue type is typically agreed to be Adonis, who equates to the Mesopotamian Tammuz, a deity associated with vegetation and agriculture. In varying mythology, Tammuz is dragged to the underworld as a substitute for his lover Ishtar. He is eventually able to return to earth for half the year, resulting in the cycle of the seasons. The cult of Tammuz spread to the Levant and then Greece, where Tammuz took the name Adonis, from the Canaanite word ‘Adon’, meaning ‘lord’. In Greek mythology, Aphrodite falls in love with the infant Adonis, and takes him to the underworld where Persephone too falls in love with him. Zeus settles the arising dispute and declares that Adonis will spend his year divided between them, again in parallel to the seasons. The festival Adonia was celebrated annually in classical Athens, where women mourned the death of the young god.

The cult of Adonis became popular again in the Roman period, and most figures of this type date from 1^st Century B.C. to 2^nd Century A.D. The god’s origins are showcased in the merging of Eastern and Classical iconography portrayed in this statue type. For an example of a complete Adonis Tammuz, see the bronze in the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, Frankfurt (inv. no. 2387).