Mithras Carrying the Bull
Unknown · Roman Imperial, AD 389
The god himself strides forward with a bull slung over his shoulders, gripping its legs with both hands while the animal's head hangs down behind him. Mithras wears his usual Persian costume of cap, tunic, cloak, trousers and boots, and the translucent white marble still keeps traces of the colours that once covered it. The group is about eighty-seven centimetres high and carved fully in the round, the weight of the bull balanced by the swing of the cloak. Look at the strain in the god's forearms and the bull's dangling hooves.
The scene comes from the myth told in the cult: before the sacrifice that renews the world, Mithras hunts the bull and carries it back to the cave. The statue belonged to the sculptural furnishing of the Mithraeum of Sidon, a group dated by inscription to the year three hundred and eighty-nine of our era. It is one of the finest surviving images of the carrying of the bull, a rarer subject than the bull-slaying displayed beside it. The group was collected by Louis de Clercq and given to the Louvre by his heirs in nineteen sixty-seven.
Did You Know? Traces of paint survive on the marble, a reminder that the underground shrine at Sidon would have been full of colour by lamplight.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.