[ID: A Statue Of A Person Lying On A Very Plush Looking Pillow-bed; The Sculpture Is Nude With Back To

[ID: A statue of a person lying on a very plush looking pillow-bed; the sculpture is nude with back to the camera, face turned to the side, lying on a dramatic drapery, with one foot gently raised.]

This is an incredibly compelling work in person for a number of reasons -- to begin with, the raised foot isn't done justice by the photograph, but it's really funny and very human in person. It looked ancient enough, but also whimsical enough, that I was surprised I hadn't seen it in the records yet, so I checked out the placard, which put the date at around 100 CE. I must have just missed it while paging through the records. I'm sorry I did, because it's a gorgeous sculpture. (Its history is complicated but it appears the figure and draperies are ancient while the bed itself is 17th century.)

And it's called the Sleeping Hermaphroditus, because...

[ID: The statue as seen from the side; head still turned away, the torso is visible, and shows both the generous curve of a breast and also a penis and testicles resting on the drapery on which the figure reclines.]

In ancient history, Hermaphroditus was the child of Aphrodite and Hermes, originally male, who was merged with a naiad who was obsessed with him and became both male and female. He's generally represented as a very feminine-looking person (hair in the female style of the time, prominent breasts, female clothing, rounded hips) with male genitalia, often coyly on display. The history is complicated; we don't have good sourcing for the story and we don't truly know how Hermaphroditus was viewed in the ancient world, as far as I know (classicists feel free to correct me on this). Hermaphroditus, generally referred to with male pronouns even after developing a female appearance, may have represented trans women, intersex people, or some spiritual concept that had little to do with human gender expression at all.

Regardless of the complication surrounding the narrative, the sculpture itself is beautiful, and well worth sharing, I think.