History

Hermes stands in contrapposto, with one leg bent forward and his hips askew. He then leans onto his left forearm which supports the minimally-draped Dionysos; this natural posture indicates the infant’s weight for viewers. It is likely that Hermes held grapes in his missing hand, as these were a primary attribute of Dionysos. While the Blanton’s cast does not, many casts restore Hermes’ missing hand with grapes in its grasp, including an example at the Wilcox Museum at the University of Kansas. This cast was made before the statue's lower legs were discovered in a subsequent excavation, but the Battle collection also includes a disarticulated foot belonging to this sculpture, which could be purchased separately from the Gipsformerei.

Purchased in November of 1894, Hermes and the Infant Dionysos was one of Battle’s three original casts. Due to the sophisticated understanding of the male body represented by the sculpture and, subsequently, by the cast—an appearance which was itself a consequence of ancient Greek views relating ideal masculinity to physical perfection—Battle originally kept it in his own classroom for easy reference during lectures. Here, it was paired with a cast Aphrodite of Melos—the embodiment of similar ancient Greek views on feminism—and they stood together representing what Battle, after the Greeks, considered perfection in gender, physique, and art. Later, the cast was moved into the Main Building where it was accessible to a wider audience. And, in 1974, it was retained for the Classics Lounge at Waggener Hall.

Due to its lengthy history at UT, paired with its public placement, Hermes and the Infant Dionysos gradually suffered enough wear to require intervention in the 1970s. Once restored, it was one of several casts from Battle’s collection that were displayed during the 1980 opening of the Huntington Art Gallery on campus. Next, it joined the Blanton’s collection and went on display when the current building opened in 2006. Today, the cast Hermes and the Infant Dionysus is among those standing in the Osborne Seminar Room.