Sleeping Hermaphroditos / Hermaphrodite Endormi

Reality Capture from Louvre, Paris The ambivalence and voluptuous curves of this figure of Hermaphroditos, who lies asleep on a mattress sculpted by Bernini, are still a source of fascination today. His body merged with that of the nymph Salmacis, whose advances he had rejected, Hermaphroditos, son of Hermes and Aphrodite, is represented as a bisexed figure. The original that inspired this figure would have dated from the 2nd century BC, reflecting the late Hellenistic taste for the theatrical. Discovered in Rome near the Baths of Diocletian in 1608, this statue was one of the most admired masterpieces of the Borghese Collection in the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1619, Cardinal Scipione Borghese commissioned the Baroque Italian sculptor Bernini to carve the mattress on which the ancient marble now lies.