"Opening February 6, the show gathers about 80 classic masterpieces that take a page from Ovid 's 8 C.E. poem, "Metamorphoses," which chronicles transformations across 250 myths. "Everything changes continuously," the Roman poet wrote, "but nothing disappears entirely." Lying amid works from to , depicting the two-sexed child of Titan's Caravaggio's will be Hermaphroditus Hermes and Aphrodite stretching out over a pillow and buttoned mattress, nude save for a sheet"
"The statue bears the work of an ancient craftsman and a Baroque master. Its body, dating to 2nd century C.E., was discovered in 1618 at the Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome, before being acquired by Cardinal Scipione Borghese for his collection. He commissioned Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini to add the bed. It was a realistic intervention, one carved out of marble yet appearing soft and indented by the supine body."
A Sleeping Hermaphroditus sculpture has arrived at the Rijksmuseum on loan from the Louvre for the Metamorphoses exhibition opening February 6. The exhibition gathers about eighty classical masterpieces inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses, a poem chronicling transformations across 250 myths. The reclining figure represents the two-sexed child of Hermes and Aphrodite and alludes to the Salmacis and Hermaphroditus story from Ovid's fourth book. The statue combines an ancient 2nd-century body discovered in 1618 with a Baroque bed added by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the latter carved to appear soft and indented by the supine form. Bernini's intervention increased the work's fame and inspired later bronzes and copies held by museums and collectors.
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