Adonis (A53)

Adonis (A53), 1887, Executed by August Saabye after Thorvaldsen's original plaster model 1808, Marble, height: 186 cm. Thorvaldsen Musem (Copenhagen, Denmark). Made with ReMake and ReCap Pro from AutoDesk. Adonis is the most handsome and sought-after young man in Greek mythology, but his birth was defiled in that he was born as the son of a woman called Myrrha, who had had an incestuous relationship with her father. As a punishment, Myrrha was changed into a tree – the myrrh tree. And when the appointed time had passed, the bark of the tree burst and the infant Adonis came into the world. In a certain sense, Adonis was doomed from the start, and he was indeed only quite young when he was killed by a wild boar during a hunt. We can see the tree on which he is supporting himself and the dead hare as references to his birth and death respectively. For more updates, please consider to follow me on Twitter at @GeoffreyMarchal.