Pan And.....

[poliphilo]

This is an antique copy of a very popular classical statue known variously as Pan and Olympus and Pan and Daphnis. We know it was popular because we possess so many versions of it. From what I've seen, this version- at Petworth House- is one of the better ones. 

Pan is teaching his protege Olympus or Daphnis to play the Pan pipes. The original was created c. 100 CE-and- on the basis of an inconclusive passage in Pliny- has been attributed to a sculptor called Heliodorus of Rhodes.

These days we treat antique statues as archaeology and- apart from cleaning them up- leave them pretty much as found- but the 18th century thought of them as art and had no qualms about making them as good as new. The Earl of Egremont's statue passed through the hands of a couple of Italian restorers before achieving its present form-  and I'm not competent to say how much of it is original. One thing I do know is that Daphnis/Olympus was found without a head- and the one he now wears once belonged to a quite different statue. It's remarkable how well it fits.....

Comments

[paserbyp]

Daphnis is a Sicilian shepherd, credited with inventing pastoral music. A common depiction shows Pan teaching Daphnis how to play the panpipes, sometimes with erotic overtones.

Erotic relations between Pan and Daphnis?

[poliphilo]

Yes, I rather think so....