Date of Printing: 1754 • Medium: Copperplate Engraving (hand colored) • Subject Category: Mythological • Signed: Plate signed, Lower Left • Period Created: Enlightenment (1700 - 1799) • Plate Size HxWxD cm: 20 x 12 5 • Leaf Paper Size HxW cm: 28.5 x 21 • Style: Original Vintage • Print on Verso: Blank on verso • Condition: Excellent • Edition Type: 1st Edition - Limited • Paper Type: Laid Paper, Watermarked • Framed: Print only
The Ancient Greece winged god HYMEN, shown with a garland of flowers and torch. Excellent condition, with slight foxing around edges. Artist: Lambert-Sigisbert Adam. E. Fessard, engraver.
Collection de Sculptures Antiques Grecques, et Romaines, Trouvées a Rome dans les ruines des Palais de Neron, et de Marius : Les Originaux de cette Collection en Marbre de Paros et Salin sont chez le Sr. Adam l'ainé Sculpteur ordinaire du Roy, ... Se vend à Paris 1754.
Hymen (Ancient Greek), Hymenaios or Hymenaeus, in ancient Greece, was a god of marriage ceremonies, inspiring feasts and song. Related to the god's name, a hymenaios is a genre of Greek lyric poetry sung during the procession of the bride to the groom's house in which the god is addressed, in contrast to the Epithalamium, which was sung at the nuptial threshold. He was one of the winged love gods, Erotes. He was the son of a muse, Clio or Calliope or Urania or Terpsichore.
Hymen was supposed to attend every wedding. If he did not, then the marriage would supposedly prove disastrous, so the Greeks would run about calling his name aloud. He presided over many of the weddings in Greek mythology, for all the deities and their children. Hymen was celebrated in the ancient marriage song of unknown origin (called a Hymenaios) Hymen o Hymenae, Hymen delivered by G. Valerius Catullus. At least since the Italian Renaissance, Hymen was generally represented in art as a young man wearing a garland of flowers and holding a burning torch in one hand.