The Bronze Head of Hypnos is a
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
copy of an ancient Greek statue found at
Civitella d'Arna near
Perugia
Perugia (, , ; lat, Perusia) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber, and of the province of Perugia.
The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and pa ...
in central Italy. Widely copied since its discovery in the early nineteenth century, it has been part of the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
's collection since 1868.
Description
Only the head of the bronze statue is extant. The face shows wings emerging from his right temple and elaborately woven locks of hair held in by a head band. As the
god of sleep, the intact statue would have shown the deity walking forwards, clutching a drinking horn and poppies in his hands. Sculptural images of Hypnos are unusual, and only a handful of similar statues are known in Western
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
.
Provenance
The bronze head was originally discovered in the small
Umbria
it, Umbro (man) it, Umbra (woman)
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n town of Civitella d'Arna. Little is known of the circumstances of the find until it became part of the Castellani Collection. The British Museum purchased the bronze sculpture, along with other parts of the collection, in 1868.
British Museum Collection
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References
{{Reflist
Further reading
*C. Rolley, Greek bronzes (London, Sotheby's Publications / Chesterman Publications, 1986)
*Henry Beauchamp Walters: British Museum. Select bronzes, Greek, Roman, and Etruscan, in the Departments of Antiquities, London 1915
*C.C. Mattusch, Classical bronzes (Cornell University Press, 1996)
Ancient Greek and Roman sculptures in the British Museum
Statues
Bronze sculptures in London
Archaeological discoveries in Italy
Ancient Roman metalwork