Prince Paris with Apple by H. W. Bissen

PD Photo: Prince Paris with Apple, marble sculpture by H. W. Bissen, located at The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (an art museum) in Copenhagen, Denmark

Danish sculptor Herman Wilhelm Bissen or H. W. Bissen (1798-1868), changed styles of his sculptures from romanticism to neo-classicism, and finally settled in realism. Bissen’s famous sculptures include the monumental Landsoldaten (1858) in Fredericia, The Isted Lion (1862) that was originally in Flensburg but now Copenhagen, Iðunn (also spelt as Ydun, Idun, Idunn, Ithun, or even Iduna and Idunna) created in 1858 and the gold-plated statue of Bishop Absalon in the front of the Copenhagen City Hall.

Hermaphroditus and Hermaphrodites

PD Photo: Hermaphroditus, marble sculpture at Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight Village, Wirral, England, photo taken on 15 July 2006.

PD Image: The metamorphosis of the nymph Salmacis and Hermaphroditus (alternatively known as ‘Verwandlung von Hermaphroditos und Salmicis’ or ‘De gedaanteverwisseling van Hermaphroditus en de nimf Salmacis’) by Flemish painter Jan Gossaert (1478-1532) created in the year ± 1517, oil on panel, size 32.8 cm x 21.5 cm (12.91 in x 8.46 in), located at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.

PD Image: The Nymph Salmacis and Hermaphroditus (1828) by Belgian neo-classical painter François-Joseph Navez (1787-1869).

The term ‘hermaphrodite’ is derived from the Greek mythological character Hermaphroditus, who fused with the nymph Salmacis, resulting in one individual possessing the physical traits of both male and female. Hermaphroditus was the son of Hermes and Aphrodite.

Salmacis is an atypical naiad (nymph) whose attempted rape of Hermaphroditus places her as the only nymph rapist in the Greek mythological canon. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, she becomes one with Hermaphroditus, and Hermaphroditus curses the fountain to have the same effect on others, or whoever comes to the fountain of Salmacis (located near the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus) will become effeminate.

Earlier, the word ‘hermaphrodite’ was used to describe a person incompatible with the biological gender binary, but it has recently been replaced by the word ‘intersex’ in medical science.

People with intersex conditions (hermaphrodites) may choose to live exclusively either as male or female, using clothing, social cues, genital surgery and hormone replacement therapy to blend into the sex they identify themselves with more closely. Some intersexual people outwardly appear completely female or male, without realizing that they are intersexual. Intersex is hypothesized to be caused by unusual sex hormones that may be caused by an atypical set of sex chromosomes.

The Crouching Aphrodite (Venus)

The so-called Lely's Venus ‘Aphrodite surprised as she bathes’, marble sculpture, Roman copy by an unknown artist from the 2nd century BC after an Hellenistic original, height 1.12 m (3 feet 8 inches), from the former collection of Sir Peter Lely; lent by H.M. Queen Elizabeth II, location at Main floor, room 23, Greek & Rome, British Museum, London, United Kingdom.

The Crouching Aphrodite (Venus), marble sculpture, Roman variant of the Imperial Era after a Hellenistic type (but the goddess is raising her left hand towards her neck whereas in the prototype used she to crosses her arms on her breast), height 71 cm (27 ¾ inches), seized during the French Revolution from the collections of Louis XIV of France, currently housed at Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities, Sully, ground floor, room 17, Louvre Museum, Paris, France.

Crouching Aphrodite (Venus) at Louvre Museum, view 2

The Crouching Aphrodite (Venus), marble sculpture, Roman copy by an unknown artist of the 1st or 2nd century CE after a Hellenistic original of the 3rd century BC, derived from the Cnidian Aphrodite by Praxiteles from Sainte-Colombe, Isère, France, height 96 cm (37 ¾ in.), Gerantet Collection (purchase 1878), current location at Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities, Sully, ground floor, room 17, Louvre Museum, Paris, France.

Capitoline Venus, marble copy of Venus by Praxiteles

Photo: Capitoline Venus, one of the best preserved copies of Cnidian Venus by Greek sculptor Praxiteles (4th century BC), height 1.93 m (6 ft. 3 ¾ in.), a gift of Benedict XIV in 1752, located at Palazzo Nuovo, First Floor, Cabinet of Venus, Capitoline Museums, Rome, Italy.

The Greek Slave by Hiram Powers

Photo: The Greek Slave (1851), marble sculpture by American sculptor Hiram Powers, 165.7 cm x 53.3 cm x 46.4 cm, located at Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut.

The original of the marble statue ‘The Greek Slave’, the most famous and most popular work of the American sculptor Hiram Powers is in Raby Castle, situated near Staindrop in County Durham, one of the largest inhabited castles in England. The statue was carved in Florence in 1844. Critics claim that the design of the statue was based on the ‘Venus de' Medici’ in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Powers himself described his work, “The Slave has been taken from one of the Greek Islands by the Turks, in the time of the Greek Revolution; the history of which is familiar to all. Her father and mother, and perhaps all her kindred, have been destroyed by her foes, and she alone preserved as a treasure too valuable to be thrown away. She is now among barbarian strangers, under the pressure of a full recollection of the calamitous events which have brought her to her present state; and she stands exposed to the gaze of the people she abhors, and awaits her fate with intense anxiety, tempered indeed by the support of her reliance upon the goodness of God. Gather all these afflictions together, and add to them the fortitude and resignation of a Christian, and no room will be left for shame.”

Hiram Powers made replicas of the original Greek Slave for sale to collectors, such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Vermont State House, and Westervelt Warner Museum of American Art in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Eve Disconsolate by Hiram Powers

Eve Disconsolate, marble sculpture by American neoclassical sculptor Hiram Powers (1805-1873), designed in 1859-61 and carved in 1873-74, currently in Cincinnati Art Museum.