Versailles: Jardins du Château de Versailles - Castor and Pollux group
Antoine Coysevox's copy of the Castor and Pollux group, executed between 1685 and 1707 and signed it 1712, was first exhibited in Palais du Louvre. It was moved here to the gardens of Versailles in 1712.
The Castor and Pollux group (also known as the San Ildefonso Group, after San Ildefonso, the location of the palace of La Granja at which it was kept until 1839) is a 1st century AD ancient Roman sculptural group, now in the Museo del Prado. Drawing on 5th and 4th century BC Greek sculptures in the Praxitelean tradition, such as the Apollo Sauroctonos and the "Westmacott Ephebe" without copying any single known Greek sculpture, it shows two idealised nude male youths, both with laurel wreaths, leaning on each other, and with a small female figure on an altar to their left (usually interpreted as a statue of a female divinity), holding a sphere (variously interpreted as an egg or pomegranate).
The identification of the figures inspired many choices of male pairs during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. During the 19th century, it became known as "Antinous and Hadrian's genius", "Antinous and a sacrificial daemon", or simply as Antinous and Hadrian pledging their fidelity to one another. All these identifications are now thought to be erroneous, and the group is now accepted as Castor and Pollux, offering a sacrifice to Persephone.
In Greek mythology the Dioskouroi (Διόσκουροι), Kastor and Polydeuces (Κάστωρ και Πολυδεύκης), in Roman mythology the Gemini (Latin, "twins") or Castores, Castor and Pollux are the twin sons of Leda and the brothers of Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. According to Liddell and Scott's Lexicon, kastor is Greek for "he who excels", and poludeukeis means "very sweet".
Versailles: Jardins du Château de Versailles - Castor and Pollux group
Antoine Coysevox's copy of the Castor and Pollux group, executed between 1685 and 1707 and signed it 1712, was first exhibited in Palais du Louvre. It was moved here to the gardens of Versailles in 1712.
The Castor and Pollux group (also known as the San Ildefonso Group, after San Ildefonso, the location of the palace of La Granja at which it was kept until 1839) is a 1st century AD ancient Roman sculptural group, now in the Museo del Prado. Drawing on 5th and 4th century BC Greek sculptures in the Praxitelean tradition, such as the Apollo Sauroctonos and the "Westmacott Ephebe" without copying any single known Greek sculpture, it shows two idealised nude male youths, both with laurel wreaths, leaning on each other, and with a small female figure on an altar to their left (usually interpreted as a statue of a female divinity), holding a sphere (variously interpreted as an egg or pomegranate).
The identification of the figures inspired many choices of male pairs during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. During the 19th century, it became known as "Antinous and Hadrian's genius", "Antinous and a sacrificial daemon", or simply as Antinous and Hadrian pledging their fidelity to one another. All these identifications are now thought to be erroneous, and the group is now accepted as Castor and Pollux, offering a sacrifice to Persephone.
In Greek mythology the Dioskouroi (Διόσκουροι), Kastor and Polydeuces (Κάστωρ και Πολυδεύκης), in Roman mythology the Gemini (Latin, "twins") or Castores, Castor and Pollux are the twin sons of Leda and the brothers of Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. According to Liddell and Scott's Lexicon, kastor is Greek for "he who excels", and poludeukeis means "very sweet".