Images of Hermes
Images of Hermes Stamp Collection
Greece 1911 Hermes Fastening his Sandal
Kreta 1901 Hermes Fastening his Sandal
an ancient silver coin from Sybrita, Crete. the beginning of the 3rd cen. bc
The sculptures of Hermes Fastening his Sandal, which exist in several versions, are all Roman marble copies of a lost Greek bronze original in the manner of Lysippos, dating to the fourth century BCE. The identity of the subject, which may simply represent an idealized athlete, is conventional.
The identification with Hermes is based on an identification of the original bronze model as a sculpture of Hermes in the gymnasium and thermae of Zeuxippos in Constantinople, which was described in detail by Christodoros of Koptos in his ekphrasis of the gymnasium as it still remained in Late Antiquity:
"There was Hermes, of the golden wand. He stood and fastened up the thongs of his winged sandal with his right hand, yearning to rush forth upon his course. His swift right leg was bent at the knee, and on it he rested his left hand, and meanwhile he was turning his face up to heaven, as if he were hearing the commands of his king and father"
Artemis was a virgin goddess, and when she discovered that one of attendants had become pregnant, the goddess expelled Callisto from her retinue. Worse was to come for Callisto, and having given birth to a son of Zeus, Callisto was transformed by an angry Hera into a bear, leaving Callisto to wander through the woods she used to hunt in as a wild animal. Hera would have done the same to the son of Callisto and Zeus, or killed him, if Zeus had not intervened, whisking the new born baby away.
Zeus would name his new son Arcas, and giving the baby to the messenger god Hermes, the baby was transported to the Pleiad Maia (mother of Hermes), who subsequently raised Arcas to adulthood.
Hermes carrying the infant Arcas
Greece 1911 Hermes with the infant Arcas
A silver stater of Pheneos , Arcadia , left wreathed female head (Kallisto or Maia?), right Hermes with the infant Arkas c. 350 BC
San Marino 1971 Head of mercury Etruscan Art, 6th-3rd Centuries B.C. terracotta, from the Temple of Portonaccio at Veio, Italy
France 1939 mercury holding the caduceus
France 1988 Double head of Hermes
Found in 1970 in the excavations of a Roman quarter of Fréjus (Le Clos de la Tour, Insula I), near an important building with peristyle and exedra, this bust is a happy exception in the relatively abundant and generally mediocre series of Hermes doubles of Hellenistic and Roman production.
The artist has skillfully associated, by opposing them, two rural divinities crowned with flowers. On the one hand a young Fauna characterized by goat attributes and whose features without excess accuse the playful temperament and mischievous spirit, on the other hand a bearded Hermes or Dionysos, imprinted with an Olympian majesty, whose eyes "unfathomable. "is underlined by a fine smile of archaic kouros.
Luxemburg 1983 Mercury, sculpture of August Tremont ( 1892-1980) for Congress Foreign Exchange dealers
Italy 1971 Mercury, on the basis of Perseus-statue of Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571) Loggia dei lanzi, Florence
Romania 2011 Mercury, painting of George Demetrescu Mirea (1852-1934) in possession of romanian national bank
Switzerland 1986 Mercury, Bronze figure from the roman city of chur in Switzerland
Greece 1974 Hermes ,vase , 5th cent. B.C.