Castor and Pollux (Prado)

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The San Ildefonso Group

The Castor and Pollux group (also known as the San Ildefonso Group, after the palace at which it was once kept) is a 1st century AD ancient Roman sculptural group, now in the Museo del Prado. It shows two idealised nude male youths, both with laurel wreaths, leaning on each other. It is 161cm high.

1 Identification
2 Style
3 History
4 Copies
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Identification

It was once identified as being Hadrian and Antinous owing to a similarity between the left-hand figure's face and that of Antinous.^{[citation needed]} That identification is now thought to be erroneous, since the head of the left-hand figure is not the statue's original head but a 17th century restoration with a bust of Antinous. Also, both figures are portrayed as youths whereas it was an important feature of these figures' relationship that Antinous was a youthful eromenos and Hadrian an elder erastes. It is now accepted as Castor and Pollux, offering a sacrifice to Persephone. Such an identification is based on the right hand figure, who holds two torches, one downturned (on an flower-wreathed altar) and one upturned (behind his back). Another altar holds a statue of a female divinity. It was supported by Goethe.[1]

Other alternative identifications in the past have included:

Hypnos and Thanatos
Corydon and Alexis
Winckelmann's suggestion of Orestes and Pylades offering a sacrifice to the statue of goddess Artemisia, which they wanted to seize, or in front of the tomb of murdered Agamemnon. (Winckelmann was the first to publish the sculpture, in 1767.)[2]

[edit] Style

Poussin's pen and brown-wash sketch of this group (c.1628).

The work is an outstanding example of neo-Attic eclecticism frequent at the end of the republic and during the first decades of the Empire, combining two different aesthetic streams (whilst the right-hand youth is Polyclitean, the left-hand one is in a softer, more sensual and Praxitelean style). This has even led to this sculptor or the original of which it is a copy being attributed to one of Praxiteles's pupils.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] History

Its findsite is unknown, but by 1623 it was in the Ludovisi Collection at the Villa Ludovisi in Rome, where the sculptor Ipolito Buzzi restored it that year.

Its reputation soon spread and shortly after 1664 it was acquired by Queen Christina of Sweden to be a part of large art collection that she gathered during her stay in Rome. The ancient sculptures in that collection were transferred to the Odescalchi family who, in 1724, offered it to the Spanish King Philip V. Philip's second wife Isabella Farnese (an Italian from the Farnese family, which had a history of sculpture collecting) acquired it at above-market price for him and had it sent to the Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso (Segovia). From there it came into the Prado (catalogue number Catalogue Nr. E.28).

[edit] Copies

Town/city	Place	Medium	Artist	Notes
Potsdam	Parc of Sanssouci, near Charlottenhof castle.	Marble	Francesco Menghi.	It first stood along the grove near the hippodrome and, since 1885, is at its present location. It hss recently been damaged.
London	Victoria & Albert Museum.	Marble	Joseph Nollekens in Rome (signed in 1767).	Soon after its completion, it was sent to Shughborough Hall (Staffordshire, UK) and stood there until 1842. Then, after changing hands a few times, the group reached the V&A Museum in 1940, where it is today exhibited in Room 50 (the British Galleries) under Inv. Nr. A.59-1940.
Versailles	Gardens.	Marble	Antoine Coysevox	The artist worked slowly on this work, between 1687 and 1706, and signed it only in 1712. First exhibited in the palace later called Musée du Louvre, it was then, in 1712, placed in the gardens of Versailles where it is still today. «Les guides font remarquer la beauté des adolescents nus et couronnés de fleurs » (Pierre de Nolhac, 1913).
Sceaux (Hauts-de-Seine, France)	Gardens of the castle.	Marble		This is an early and rather free interpretation of the Ildefonso group, probably based on an etching or drawing. 2.5 m high, it is also considerably larger than the original. This group goes back to the first half of the 17th century, is carved in stone and its back has never been completely finished. The group shows today severe degradations.
Berlin	Charlottenburgg.	Bronze	Christoph Heinrich Fischer	Active in Berlin in the first half of the 19th century, the artist created in 1833, this bronze belongs to the decoration of the gardens since then. Restored in 1998.
Berlin	Glienicke Castle (originally on top of a fountain, now in the inner court of the castle).	Bronze		1828, in a set-up inspired by the Weimar copy.
Bad Freienwalde	(previously inside the castle, used to decorate a chimney-piece, and now standing in the gardens, in front of the castle).	Iron		Manufactured in 1795 by the foundry of Lauchhammer. Probably copied from the plaster cast figuring in the casts collection assembled by the painter Anton Rafael Mengs [1728-1779] and donated to the Albertinum of Dresden in 1785.
Weimar		Iron		Manufactured by the foundry of Lauchhammer. Displayed from 1796 near the HOLZHALLE of the Red Castle (Rotes Schloß). In 1824, the architect Clemens Wenzel Coudray [1775-1845] had it moved and set on a fountain in front of the Red Castle (Burgplatz), where it still stands today after having been restored in 1994/95.[3]
Weimar	Goethe’s House.	Plaster cast.		Acquired in 1812 by Goethe himself, and is now on the landing of the first floor. Goethe wrote about this group : "Diese beyden Epheben waren mir immer höchst angenehm" (Goethe, 10.11.1812, letter to Heinrich Meyer)
Dresden	Porzellansammlung, Inv. N° PE 434.	Biscuit	Christian Gottfried Jüchtzer [1752-1812]	c. 35 cm high. The artist produced several exemplars of “Castor and Pollux” during his career in Meißen. Exhibited in the Japanisches Palais in the 19th century, today in the Zwinger.
Berlin	Kunstgewerbemuseum, Room V.	Porcelain	Christian Gottfried Jüchtzer	ca. 1790, about 35 cm high.
London	British Museum	Meissen porcelain	Christian Gottfried Jüchtzer	Inv. N° MME 2001, 3-4, 1. Dated 1788-89, acquired in 2001. Exhibited in Room 47, Showcase 1.