To share the beloved's memory - the Lansdowne Antinoüs

 

Antinoüs, from the province of Bithynia on the Black Sea coast was, famously, the companion of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. In October 130 CE the young man drowned in the River Nile under circumstances and for reasons which have never been ascertained. Accident, murder, self-sacrifice? Whatever the cause, Hadrian was grief-stricken and, soon after, he declared that the youth had been reborn as a god. He built a great city, Antinoöpolis, on the eastern bank of the Nile, at the site of the tragedy, and a cult to his dead favorite was established that lasted well into the fourth century CE.

Upwards of a hundred images of this new god survive, while countless more were no doubt created but now lost. In art he was often assimilated with other, more traditional gods. But whether represented as Apollo or Mercury/Hermes, or portrayed wearing Egyptian costume, marking an association with the Egyptian god Osiris, his codified portrait - sensual face; strong, straight brows; pouting lips; thick, tousled hair - make his imagery easily identifiable. He was also frequently depicted as Dionysos/Bacchus. It is as this deity, his luxuriant hair circled with the god's familiar wreath of ivy or grapevine leaves, that he appears in the Fitzwilliam bust.

This bust was unearthed in 1769 at the site of Hadrian’s great villa at Tivoli - more than twenty images of Antinoüs have been discovered at Hadrian’s Villa - during excavations undertaken by the art dealer and archaeologist Gavin Hamilton, who secured it for the 2nd Earl of Shelburne, created 1st Marquess of Lansdowne in 1784. The latter was an avid collector of antiquities and kept a fine collection of classical sculpture until most of it was sold and dispersed by his descendants in 1930. It entered the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1937 as a bequest of the artists Charles Shannon and Charles Ricketts.

Unknown sculptor, marble, circa 130 CE - 200 CE. 

*

The original photographs taken at the Fitzwilliam Museum are by Carole Raddato, from her Flickr photostream.