Demeter relief

Our Price: $79.00

Versailles Municipal Library, France. 18th century This relief represents Demeter, maternal Goddess of the Earth, and especially of cultivated land. One of her attributes is wheat, shown here on her head. The name Demeter means Earth Goddess (De=Earth, Meter=Goddess) The adventures of Demeter and her daughter Persephone constitute the central myth of The Eleusinian Mysteries, the most important mysteries of classic Greece. Her symbols are the ears of wheat and a torch. The ears of wheat are the sacred fruit of the Goddess of Farming and Cereals, and the torch alludes to the rituals of the Eleusinian Mysteries which took place at night by torch light. Demeter is credited with teaching humans how to cultivate crops, a task that she assigned to Triptolemus.
bonded stone
14.5"H x 11"W (37 x 28cm)

Fauns and Bachantes dancing

Our Price: $101.00

The Louvre Museum, Paris. 18th century This sculpture shows a celebration by the fauns (male followers of Dionysos) and the Bacchantes or Maenads who were women followers of Dionysos frenzied with wine that rushed through woods and mountains swept away in a fierce ecstasy. They celebrated his orgies with drunkenness, nakedness, singing and sacramental feasting. The Gods of Olympus loved order and beauty in their sacrifices and their temples. The madwomen, the Bacchantes, had no temples. They went to the wilderness to worship. There was much that was lovely, good and freeing in this worship under the open sky and yet alway present, too, was the horrible bloody feast. The worship of Dionysos was centered in these two ideas so far apart-of freedom and ecstatic joy and of savage brutality. The God of wine could give either of them to his worshippers. Throughout the story of his life, he is sometimes man�s blessing, sometimes his ruin.
bonded stone
13"H x 24"W (33 x 59cm)

Fauns pressing grapes

Our Price: $101.00

The Louvre Museum, Paris. 18th century This Neo-classic sculpture represents the "Lenea" or festival of the wine-pressing which is an Athenian fertility celebration in honor of Dionysos (also known as Bacchus in Rome), the Dionysian mysteries being one of the main components of the old Greek religion. As the wine was sacred to Dionysos, the grapes became one of his main attributes and symbols. The followers of Dionysos likened the plucking, crushing and pressing of the grape to form a pleasing nectar to the progress of the soul, which is formed whole and then crushed and pressed into shape by the trials of its earthly adventures, eventually to re-emerge as a refined and useful intelligence. This analogy was seen in the life of Dionysos himself, whose purification by way of madness and suffering finally gained him admittance to Olympus.
bonded stone
12"H x 23"W (30 x 58cm)

Hebe the Cupbearer Statue by Thornwaldsen, 14"H

Our Price: $69.00

Thorvaldsen Museum , Copenhagen, Denmark, 1816 A.D. Hebe was the Greek goddess of youth and Spring. Hebe was the daughter of Zeus and Hera. She was sometimes called Ganymeda. She is the cup-bearer in Heaven and pours the ambrosia nectar to the gods when they are assembled. She was also the patron goddess of the young bride. Hebe was often portrayed as an attendant of the bridal Aphrodite. She married Heracles (Hercules) when the hero became a god at his death. At Rome the goddess was worshiped under the name of Juventas. The Neo-classical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen emulated ancient Greeks, believing that they were the only sculptors who attained pure formal beauty without regard to content. Probably his best work is the statue of Hebe. Her pure beauty and everlasting youth made her portrayal a splendid choice for Neo-Classical art. The art movement, Neoclassicism, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, referred back to Classical times for inspiration.
bonded stone
5 X 5 X 14

The Three Graces

Our Price: $77.00

Victoria & Albert Museum, London, By Antonio Canova, 1770 - 1822 A.D. They are the beautiful sister Goddesses who attended Aphrodity, the Goddess of love and were personifications of grace and beauty. They spread the joy of nature and lived on Olimpus. Their names, number and parentage vary, but they are generally said to be three sisters named Euphrosyne, who represented jollity, Thalia identified with abundance, and Aglaea, a representation of splendor. They are daughters of Zeus and Eurynome or Hera. They influenced artists throughout the ages. They were depicted in sculpture and vase paintings by the ancient Greeks, in Roman wall paintings at Pompeii, in Botticelli�s allegorical painting known as Springtime, and in this statue which Canova carved in marble. In art they are frequently represented as naked girls with their hands on each other�s shoulders, the two outer figures looking one way and the middle one looking the other.
bonded stone
11"H (27 cm)

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