Antinous - Antinous Long-Haired

ANTINOUS LONG-HAIRED TYPES

ANTINOUS BRASCHI

One of the most celebrated cameo images of Antinous combines attributes of both Osiris and Dionysus and is derived from the huge marble statue in the Vatican known as the Antinous Braschi after its first owner, a nephew of the Pope.  A relatively late discovery, it was excavated in Palestrina in 1793.   Crowning the head of the statue is a large, leafy-looking bud which has been added by restorers and probably replaces what was originally a lotus flower in bud.  The lotus is symbolic of the Nile and of Osiris, linking Antinous to Egypt in the same way as does the hem-hem crown he is often depicted wearing on Roman coins.  In the statue he also wears a wreath of ivy comprising leaves and rounded clusters of berries, ivy being a wild evergreen plant just as sacred to the wine god Dionysus as the more familiar grape vine.  In addition he holds a thyrsus, a staff topped with a pine cone associated with fertility rites, although this very rarely appears in cameo presentations.

ANTINOUS BRASCHI AND VARIATIONS

Click on photos to enlarge.

The hair is worn long and loose at the back and trails down his neck in wavy tendrils but is cut short across his forehead in a fringe (in American usage, "bangs") and shorter at the sides, curling at the temples.  Some cameo carvers omit or truncate the bud or lotus ornament, probably because they do not recognise what it is and prefer to stick with the more familiar ivy wreath.

Click on photos to enlarge.

The cameo on the left, above, in the British Museum, is by Guiseppe or Pietro Girometti.  In the centre cameo the carver has replaced one long lock of hair with a fillet or ribbon.  In the second from last cameo, the clusters of ivy berries studding the wreath are somewhat stylized and could at first glance be mistaken for composite flowers of the daisy family which are no doubt carved in a similar way.  However, each berry is of equal size and sufficiently dimensional not to be confused with the flatter ray florets or petals of a flower. 

Could this hardstone cameo depict a flame-haired Antinous?  Our subject appears to be wearing a wreath of some sort although it is quite hard to make out.  The hair is fairly long and unruly and does not quite conform to the Braschi type but it is possible the carver had Antinous in mind.

Another integral part of the Antinous Braschi "look" is that he is bare chested apart from the cloak fastened at the shoulder.  Some cameos depart from the original in showing both shoulders draped.  We have also seen one extremely fine cameo in which the carver replicated the Antinous Braschi profile in every detail apart from substituting an animal pelt for the cloak and adding a thyrsus to the left of the head.  This is clearly a creative variation on the theme of Antinous as Dionysus.  We are unable to reproduce the cameo in question but the upper cameo of the two shown in this photo is similar in its addition of a thyrsus.

This rare turquoise cameo seems to offer an interpretation of the Antinous Braschi with rather juvenile, boyish features and an added pelt.

ANTINOUS VS. DIONYSUS TYPES

We are now entering the somewhat blurred cameo territory between Antinous as the wine god Dionysus and Dionysus proper.  How do they differ?  While Antinous (as Dionysus) may be crowned with ivy, he very rarely wears vines or grapes in his hair, unlike Dionysus, who may wear either plant.  It is perhaps significant that in the only (heavily restored) sculpture we have seen to date of Antinous wearing vines in his hair he is also wearing an ivy wreath (Naples National Archaeological Museum).

Another difference is that Antinous only ever seems to wear his hair long and loose at the back if he’s sporting a fringe at the front, whereas it is more common for Dionysus to have long hair all over which is parted down the centre and partially tied up at the back.   Certain other conventions also apply when Antinous is depicted with long hair in the Braschi manner: his head is usually wreathed with ivy (as opposed to grapevines, laurel or flowers) and his chest is not covered or draped except at the shoulder; he does not usually wear an animal pelt, nor carry a thyrsus or any other Dionysiac paraphernalia; finally he does not appear with his back to the viewer nor look skywards – these are the attitudes of Dionysus or his female devotees, the maenads (bacchantes).

According to these various criteria, the ivy- or vine-clad subjects below, some of which are also draped at the shoulders or wearing pelts tied shawl-fashion around their necks, represent Dionysus or a youth in that style, not Antinous:

NON-ANTINOUS (DIONYSUS) TYPES Click on photos to enlarge.

 Wreathed classical heads of the type having ivy, fruiting vines or locks of long hair trailing decoratively under the neck are very common in nineteenth century cameos. While echoes of Antinous cannot be ruled out, particularly in the finer examples, they lack the combination of wreath and hair details that would identify them as Antinous based on sculptural and glyptic evidence.  Such cameos belong to a generic Dionysus/maenad type. The last cameo head wears an ivy wreath without the trailing stem but clearly follows the same pattern. 

AMBIGUOUS DIONYSUS TYPES

Inevitably, shades of ambiguity arise wherever facial or other similarities to Antinous are detected.  It is quite likely that some Dionysus-type cameos are influenced by images such as the Antinous Braschi, even though other features such as vines or pelts point to Dionysus.

There are also Dionysus-type gems that show an irrefutable and deliberate facial resemblance to Antinous.  It is well worth looking up gems 4227-4229 in the Tassie collection of Oxford University's Beazley Archive.  Listed as depicting Dionysus (the 'Greek or Theban Bacchus'), the profiles are instantly recognizable as Antinous and could not have been modelled on anyone else.  This would have greatly boosted their appeal to an eighteenth-century clientele of male connoisseurs.

It is no coincidence that at least two (and quite possibly all three) of these gems were engraved by Edward Burch (1739-1814), the same carver who was commissioned by the 4^th Duke of Marlborough to engrave copies of his famous antique Roman intaglio of Antinous shouldering a spear, shown in copy here.

The spear over the shoulder in the Marlborough gem is echoed in the shaft of what is surely a thyrsus in two of the Tassie gems, (for some reason it is called a ‘vine branch’ in the catalogue).  Why Antinous is not even mentioned in the catalogue entries is a mystery.

ANTINOUS LOOKALIKES 

Despite a very plausible resemblance, the youthful, longer-haired but unwreathed figure to the left, with demurely lowered head, is the Eros Centocelle, not Antinous.

Here is another Antinous lookalike:

Close examination reveals a head of snakes for hair, indicating the so-called 'Strozzi Medusa', after a Hellenistic chalcedony intaglio in the British Museum.

OTHER NON-ANTINOUS TYPES

These twentieth-century shell cameos may suggest Antinous Braschi in broadest outline, but fall short in the finer details or lack of them:

Two of these cameos show no evidence of the fringe that should accompany his longer hair at the back.  They also seem to feminize their subject in the run-of-the-mill wreath of flowers instead of ivy.  All three falter in the shape of the nose (Antinous has a strong, slightly aquiline nose).  The shoulders are also draped in a rather vague manner and there is no real sense of a masculine chest.

Such cameos do not have the necessary qualities or features that would identify the subject as Antinous, even though they may be Antinous-inspired.

LANSDOWNE ANTINOUS AND ANTINOUS MONDRAGONE

Apart from the Antinous Braschi (which is the most frequent representation of Antinous in nineteenth century cameos), there are very few--perhaps less than a handful of--other sculptures depicting him with long hair.  Of these, the two best known are the Lansdowne Antinous, discovered at Hadrian’s villa and now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (below left), and the haunting Antinous Mondragone bust retrieved from the villa Mondragone, which is displayed in the Louvre (below right).  In both sculptures Antinous swaps his trademark fringe for all-over long hair which is parted in the centre and tied back (either partially or entirely) in a style characteristic of a classical Dionysus (below centre).

LANSDOWNE ANTINOUS

In the Lansdowne bust, Antinous wears an ivy wreath and headband (fillet) reminiscent of the Dionysus, shown to his right, a 2^nd Century AD copy of an Hellenistic sculpture now in the Louvre.  Cameos based on the Lansdowne bust appear to be very rare.  The example in agate below dates from the latter part of the nineteenth century.

ANTINOUS MONDRAGONE
 

Although lacking an ivy wreath, the Antinous Mondragone bust is also widely believed to represent Antinous in the manner of a classical Greek Dionysus or possibly Apollo.  His luxuriant long wavy hair is parted in the centre and caught up with a fillet in an elaborately looping style either side of his head and in a double looped bun at the back.  Two long ropes of hair fall upon his shoulders and there are two short curls just in front of each ear.

Looking closely, one can also see holes of various sizes drilled at intervals around the head, either on or close to the fillet, the largest hole being at the front above his forehead.  These were surely meant for mounting a head ornament of some kind--possibly a lotus bud coronet or uraeus (cobra)--which would have linked the Mondragone presentation with Osiris and with Egypt in the same way as these do features on the Antinous Braschi sculpture.  The smaller holes are more of a mystery.  They may have been drilled for attaching some plant-related adornment(s) similar to, if not actually, a wreath of ivy (a wreath would have obscured the carefully defined fillet and surrounding hair), or perhaps they contained coloured gem stones.  These would not have looked out of place in a sculpture that was originally painted and therefore much more colourful than we see now. 

The Mondragone-type portrait seems to be a far less popular choice among cameo carvers than the Braschi model. We know it was one of the subjects engraved by Nathaniel Marchant, for which see the impression in the Amastini Collection of the Beazley Archive.

Another example by an unknown carver is this slate-backed shell cameo in the Victorian & Albert Museum.

ANTINOUS MONDRAGONE VARIATIONS

Perhaps some carvers were put off by the unusual complexity of the hair or perhaps they considered the image less well known and therefore less marketable than the Braschi.  Others decided to embellish the Mondragone portrait with a Braschi-style ivy wreath.  Adding the wreath certainly highlighted the connection with Dionysus but may also have been done for more commercial reasons, to increase the cameo's appeal to the public. This modification probably originated with a certain carver or workshop early in the nineteenth century.

This citrine intaglio by Luigi Pichler (University of Pennsylvania Museum) appears to follow the Mondragone bust in the pose and the exposed ear, while making significant departures in the facial features (which are noticeably stylized) and hair.  Perhaps Pichler based this shorter style of curls and corkscrew tendrils on the two spring-like coils of hair seen just in front of the ear in the Mondragone portrait.

It seems likely that Pichler could take more creative risks with the subjects of his cameos not just because his high reputation allowed it, but because his clients to some extent expected it.  They did not want "their" version of a subject to be a mere imitation of the last one, they wanted it to stand out in some way.

A similar case of artistic licence can be seen in this Saulini cameo which appears to combine elements of both the Braschi and Mondragone portraits in a novel image somewhere between the two.

At first glance, it might be mistaken for a fairly typical, right-facing profile of Antinous Braschi, albeit in a version without the lotus ornament.  He has the crucial ivy wreath and long, wavy locks of hair trailing down his nape.  Looking more closely, we see that the fringe has been replaced by long, centre-parted hair drawn back and restrained with a fillet in the Mondragone style, including the loose, "figure-of-eight" bun at the back.  Notice also how the shoulder clasp of the cloak in the Braschi portrait has turned into a lock of hair resting on the far shoulder--another Mondragone feature.

It is easy to imagine how a cameo of this quality from such an eminent workshop might be copied by other carvers with less understanding of the original subject, giving rise to a whole new range of Antinous "hybrids".

ANTINOUS MONDRAGONE LOOKALIKES

The cameo on the right is similar in concept to the Saulini above but the shoulders and chest are covered with a knotted pelt not seen in either the Braschi or Mondragone images. The face has also become noticeably feminine.  If this is meant to be Antinous, the carver has stretched the definition too far.

The intentions behind this cameo are also unclear:

While the carver seems to have taken his cue from the Antinous Mondragone in the styling of the hair, the added wreath of roses seems more consistent with a female subject--a goddess or nymph, perhaps--than with Antinous.  If Antinous wears flowers, they are not of this type as far as we know.  Also, the nose does not seem sufficiently prominent for Antinous.  This kind of deviation arises over time through the repeated copying of images by different carvers who were often copying from other cameos that were themselves copies of copies.  Knowledge of the original easily became lost and consequently images mutated.  Besides interpreting details subjectively, individual artisans were also likely to make modifications which suited their particular style, skills or limitations or which might enhance their sales in a changing market.

It is worth remembering that Italian craftsmen were under constant pressure to cater for the tastes of their largely foreign customer base, from the wealthy, upper class Grand Touristes of the eighteenth- and early nineteenth century to the new wave of Victorian middle-class buyers. Being both status- and fashion-conscious, they preferred ostentatious jewellery with cameo subjects of a prettier, more romantic, sentimental nature to the stricter classical themes of earlier times.  This to some extent explains a loosening in the way Antinous was depicted in favour of the more ambiguous, romanticized and feminized images shown above.

One of the lots recently featured in a US auction catalogue was a marble bust (shown far right) "after the Antinous Mondragone in the Louvre Museum".  The same figure (near right), also listed as ‘Antinous’, has since turned up in cameo form on a well-known internet auction site.  Compare these with the actual Antinous Mondragone bust (left).  Despite a superficial similarity in the ropes of hair coming forward from behind the ears and the angle of the head, the busts clearly differ significantly.  The lotus flower at the brow indicates this is Isis.