An Offering to Hymen

Sir Alfred Gilbert, R. A. (1854-1934)

1884

Bronze with rich brown patination on an ebonized wood socle

11 inches; (29 cm.)

Other views

Three-quarter rear view

Details: base and torso

According to Robert Bowman, this work "depicts a naked young girl making a scarifice to the god Hymen, the god of marriage and an attendant of Venus. The work was created during the same period as Gilbert's Kiss of Victory, and bth clearly show the influence of the Classical Greek theatre" (52).

Photograph and caption from Robert Bowman, Sir Alfred Gilbert and the New Sculpture (2008)

Robert Bowman and the Fine Art Society, London, have most generously given their permission to use information, images, and text from the catalogue named above in the Victorian Web. Copyright on text and images from their catalogues remains, of course, with them. [GPL]

References

Beattie, Susan. The New Sculpture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983.

Bowman, Robert. Sir Alfred Gilbert and the New Sculpture. London: The Fine Art Society, 2008.

Dorment, Richard. Victorian High Renaissance. Minneapolis: The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1978. No. 95.

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Last modified 6 June 2008