Italian, Florence, late 18th century

These two figures are after the marble Harpocrates in the Musei Capitolini in Rome, which was found at Villa Adriana, Tivolo in 1739-41. A gesso model of this figure is in the collection of models of the Ginori Factory at Doccia and published by R. Balleri (op. cit).

Harpocrates is the Egyptian Horus the Child, son of Isis and Osiris, who represented the regeneration of Nature, Fertility and Abundance. He holds a cornucopia and places his finger on his lips, an infant gesture misunderstood by Greeks and Romans as the God of Silence. This iconographic scheme relates to an Alexandrine Hellenistic prototype. The discovery of the Capitoline Harpocrates is connected to the excavation of the Antinoeion, the Temple dedicated to Antinous at Villa Adriana, Tivoli.

RELATED LITERATURE

R. Balleri, Modelli della Manifattura Ginori a Doccia, Settecento e gusto antiquario, Rome, 2014, cat. 177, pp. 290, 301

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