Female Herm and Male Herm are a set of two neoclassical

Neoclassical sculpture

Neoclassical sculpture was a sculptural style of the 18th and 19th centuries. The neoclassical period was one of the great ages of public sculpture, though its "classical" prototypes were more likely to be Roman copies of Hellenistic sculptures. The neoclassical sculptors paid homage to an idea of...

 marble herms

Herma

A Herma, commonly in English herm is a sculpture with a head, and perhaps a torso, above a plain, usually squared lower section, on which male genitals may also be carved at the appropriate height...

 in the outdoor sculpture collection of the historic Oldfields

Oldfields

Oldfields also known as Lilly House and Gardens, is a 26 acre historic estate and house museum on the grounds of the Indianapolis Museum of Art in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. The estate, an example of the American country house movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was...

 estate, located on the campus of the Indianapolis Museum of Art

Indianapolis Museum of Art

The Indianapolis Museum of Art is an encyclopedic art museum located in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. The museum, which underwent a $74 million expansion in 2005, is located on a campus on the near northwest area outside downtown Indianapolis, northwest of Crown Hill Cemetery.The...

 (IMA), in Indianapolis

Indianapolis

Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...

, Indiana

Indiana

Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...

. Together the herms depict either Dionysus

Dionysus

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...

 and a Maenad

Maenad

In Greek mythology, maenads were the female followers of Dionysus , the most significant members of the Thiasus, the god's retinue. Their name literally translates as "raving ones"...

 or a dryad

Dryad

Dryads are tree nymphs in Greek mythology. In Greek drys signifies 'oak,' from an Indo-European root *derew- 'tree' or 'wood'. Thus Dryads are specifically the nymphs of oak trees, though the term has come to be used for all tree nymphs in general...

 and a satyr

Satyr

In Greek mythology, satyrs are a troop of male companions of Pan and Dionysus — "satyresses" were a late invention of poets — that roamed the woods and mountains. In myths they are often associated with pipe-playing....

.

Description

Each herm consists of a head and upper torso blended into a simple, squared column that tapers to a narrow width and then expands slightly outward into a more decorative, banded rectangular base.

The female figure’s head leans slightly back, looking a little to the proper left and up. Her facial expression is relaxed and she smiles widely, showing her teeth. Her long hair is tucked back loosely and adorned with a wreath of flowers. Unlike the male herm, the female has certain extremities included that are truncated by the sculptor. The figure’s proper left shoulder is raised as though the arm is extended outward, but the arm is instead cut smooth in a vertical plane about an inch out from the armpit. The otherwise exposed left breast is hinted at but again truncated into a smooth plane in line with the front side of the pillar. A sheepskin is draped over her proper right shoulder and breast and wrapped around the back so that two hoofed legs tie in front, under the plane of the left breast. The sheep’s head hangs down her proper right side. A cascading series of wildflowers extends down from under the hoofs almost to the base.

The male figure's head turns regally on its muscular neck to align with the proper right front edge of the column. The strong-featured face bears a medium-length, wavy beard that comes to two slight points on the chin. The hair is crowned with a grape vine with bountiful leaves and grape clusters draping down along the neck on the proper left. The torso and upper column are draped with a feline skin which is tied by the front limbs on the front of the sculpture. The surface of the skin is heavily drilled, either to evoke a wooliness of the fur or to represent the spots of a leopard with shadow. Another grape vine trails down and to the proper left from beneath the tied paws.

Art Historical Context

The herm (from the Greek ῾Ηρμῆς, the messenger of the Gods and patron of thieves and travelers) follows a sculptural tradition begun in ancient Greece, in which a human head was carved on top of a squared pillar or pedestal of proportionate body height. Archaic herms, used as road markers and signs of auspiciousness, usually depicted the god Hermes and frequently included the male genitalia carved directly onto the pillar at the appropriate height. Later the herm became less rigid in its use and served as a template for portraits, a tradition adopted by the Romans. During the Renaissance the herm received a resurgence of popularity as both a decorative and an architectural form.

Here the Neoclassical tradition has taken the ancient genre and used it to depict another ancient theme. The plants and skins shown on the two sculptures reflect both pastoral settings and Bacchic revelry. The male herm may represent the god Dionysus, who was often depicted with grapes and a leopard, but pointed ears on this herm may indicate that it is not the god himself but rather one of his satyr followers. Likewise the female herm may be a dryad (nymph of the woods, often paired with satyrs or fauns), or a Maenad (a human female devotee of Dionysus), often described as clad in skins and cavorting madly or drunkenly, as this figure’s vibrant posture may suggest.

Historical information

The grounds of Oldfields were landscaped by Percival Gallagher of the Olmsted Brothers

Olmsted Brothers

The Olmsted Brothers company was an influential landscape design firm in the United States, formed in 1898 by stepbrothers John Charles Olmsted and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. .-History:...

 in the 1920s. The property and all sculptures on it were donated to the IMA by the family of former Oldfields owner Josiah K. Lilly, Jr., in 1967. In 2001 the outdoor sculptures were assessed, and eighteen selected pieces were accessioned into the IMA’s Lilly House collection. Female Herm was assigned Accession Number LH2001.240, and Male Herm was assigned LH2001.241.

Provenance

The maker and place of origin are unknown. The material is Carrara marble, widely used for sculpture and quarried around Carrara, Italy; thus the sculpture set may have been made in Italy. The two herms were clearly manufactured and sold as a set, as indicated by the symmetry of form and subject matter.

Acquisition

It is not known with certainty when this sculpture set was first brought to the Oldfields estate, but it is documented in historic photographs from the Landon era.

Location history

The herms were originally positioned on either side of the north entrance path of the Formal Garden. The two are aligned on an east-west axis, with Female Herm on the eastern side of the path and Male Herm on the western. They have remained in approximately the same place since (with the exception of some time in storage during the 1992 Formal Garden renovation).

Condition

The marble sculptures are monitored, cleaned, and treated regularly by the IMA art conservation staff. Both sculptures are considered structurally sound and stable as of 2011.