Eros Stringing His Bow
Unknown (Roman, after Lysippos) (Lysippos active c. 370-310 BC) · Roman imperial period
A winged boy tests the string of a bow he has just bent, his body leaning into the effort, his hair plaited into a braid running from the brow. This is Eros, god of love, and the type follows a celebrated bronze by Lysippos of the fourth century BC that stood in the god's sanctuary at Thespiae. The statue is composite: the head is of a different marble from the body. The arms, most of the wings, the right leg and the middle of the left leg are marble or plaster restorations, along with the nose, mouth and chin, so the original survives mainly in the torso and thighs.
A mortise on the left thigh once held one of the wings. The figure was carved in the Roman imperial period, probably in Rome, and was found there on the Palatine hill, beside the Circus Maximus. It came to the Louvre in 1861 with the Campana collection. Lysippos was said to have shown Eros stringing his bow, a simple gesture turned into a tense spiral of the body. A smaller version of the same type stands nearby, so you can compare how two workshops handled the same model.
Did You Know? A rectangular socket cut into the left thigh once anchored one of the marble wings, which had to be carved separately.
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