Sleeping Hermaphroditus

Sleeping Hermaphroditus
Artist	Unknown, Gian Lorenzo Bernini (mattress)
Year	Ancient Rome sculpture, 1620 (mattress)
Catalogue	11
Type	Sculpture
Medium	Marble
Subject	Hermaphroditus
Dimensions	169 cm (67 in)
Location	The Louvre, Paris
Preceded by	The Rape of Proserpina
Followed by	Bust of Pope Gregory XV

The Sleeping Hermaphrodite is an ancient marble sculpture depicting Hermaphroditus life size. In 1620, Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini sculpted the mattress upon which the statue now lies. The form is partly derived from ancient portrayals of Venus and other female nudes, and partly from contemporaneous feminised Hellenistic portrayals of Dionysus/Bacchus. It represents a subject that was much repeated in Hellenistic times and in ancient Rome, to judge from the number of versions that have survived. Discovered at Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome, the Sleeping Hermaphrodite was immediately claimed by Cardinal Scipione Borghese and became part of the Borghese Collection. The "Borghese Hermaphrodite" was later sold to the occupying French and was moved to The Louvre, where it is on display.

The Sleeping Hermaphrodite has been described as a good early Imperial Roman copy of a bronze original by the later of the two Hellenistic sculptors named Polycles (working c. 155 BC);^[1] the original bronze was mentioned in Pliny's Natural History.^[2]