Herm of Bacchus

Valadier Luigi

(Rome 1726 - 1785)

Commissioned in 1773 by Marcantonio Borghese for the family palazzo in Campo Marzio, the Herm of Bacchus was long thought to be ancient until later studies proved the identity of its maker. The documentation found attests that the trunk in rose patterned alabaster, draped in the upper part, is the result of the reworking of an antique piece by the stonemason Benedetto Maciucchi. Luigi Valadier, the author of the beautiful bronze head, applied a green patina with gold splashes on the hair to render the effect of antiquity, traces of which are still visible.

From reading the inventory of the artist’s possessions, drawn up after his death, it can be deduced that the Bacchus bust was part of a series of bronzes regularly produced by his workshop, which combined them with different marbles to offer these works to his affluent and refined clientele, consisting of royalty, diplomats, collectors, antique dealers and grand tourists.

Object details

Commentary

The head of Bacchus, in bronze, has his hair softly gathered at the nape of his neck, with two loose locks descending to the sides of his face, and is crowned with a wreath of ivy and bunches of grapes, plants traditionally linked to the cult of the god. In fact, Dionysus (Bacchus is the Latin name) had transformed the young athlete Cissus into an ivy plant. Cissus had been mortally wounded by falling while dancing in front of his temple. Bacchus turned Ampelus, his young lover, killed by a bull, into a grapevine. From the preserved documentation we know that Luigi Valadier applied a greenish patina to the bronze and hints of gilding on the crown, to make it resemble the antique: an effect desired by the artist, perfectly successful and still appreciable today.

The Herm derives from a type of sculpture already mentioned around 520 BC in Greece, where it originally depicted only the god Hermes, protector of travellers, and was placed along roads and at crossroads. The juxtaposition of bronze and coloured stone is typical of the revival of the late 18th-century Roman period.

The trunk, in rose-patterned alabaster, draped in the upper part, is the result of the reworking of an antique piece by the stonemason Benedetto Maciucchi (González-Palacios 2000, pp. 126-127) and is grafted at the bottom onto a bronze base –  with a very fine ornamentation consisting of groove moulding, a laurel festoon and smooth cubes – and a squared block of nero d’Aquitania, provided by the restorer Ferdinando Lisandroni together with part of the alabaster needed to complete the trunk (González-Palacios 1993, I, p. 37). The bronze base is hollow and covers a white marble base on three visible sides, specially shaped to allow the bronze part to slide and adhere to it perfectly (Minozzi, in Valadier, 2019, cat. 2, p. 188).

Commissioned in 1773 by Marcantonio Borghese for the family palazzo in Campo Marzio, the Herm was exhibited there until 1832 in the same room that housed the antique Hermaphrodite restored by Andrea Bergondi. Its creator was soon forgotten, as confirmed in writing by Antonio Canova. In 1779, after visiting Palazzo Borghese to admire the Hermaphrodite, Canova noted the presence of the Herm, “the most modern work then to be seen in Rome”, but attributed it to a French author, André-Jean Lebrun (Canova 2007, p. 65).

Later, the work was considered to be ancient by Nibby (1832, p. 95), who first mentioned it in 1832. Platner (1842, p. 248) and Venturi (1893, p. 34) considered it to be a modern imitation of an ancient work. De Rinaldis (1948, p. 25) placed its execution shortly after the end of the 16th century, and Della Pergola (1951, p. 15) spoke of the 17th century. Faldi (1954, p. 18) referred it to the 18th century, due to the elegant and soft stylisation of the antique motif rendered in the spirit of early Roman Neoclassicism. At the turn of the last century, the discovery of a note of payment made it possible to definitively identify the author as Luigi Valadier, who received 40 scudi for the modelling and execution of the head and 20 for the base (González-Palacios 1993, I, pp. 34-51 and, in L’oro di Valadier, 1997, cat. 25, pp. 125-126).

From reading the inventory of Luigi Valadier’s possessions, drawn up after his death, one can deduce that the Bacchus bust was part of a series of bronzes regularly produced by his workshop and combined with different marbles to be offered to his affluent and refined clientele (Teolato, in Valadier, 2019, p. 51). A second example of the Herm, which passed through the antiques market, is now preserved in a private collection (Teolato 2018, p. 209, no. 26).

Sonja Felici