These superb earrings consist of a large honeysuckle palmette below which hangs a finely worked three-dimensional figure of the Trojan prince Ganymede in the clutches of Zeus, who has assumed the guise of an eagle. Coveted by Zeus for his beauty, Ganymede was carried off to Mount Olympos to be a cup-bearer for the gods. The pendants are sculptural masterpieces in miniature, which no doubt reflect in their basic conception a famous large-scale bronze group of the same subject, made by Leochares in the first half of the fourth century B.C. The airborne theme is ingeniously adapted here to an object that hangs freely in space.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Pair of gold earrings with Ganymede and the eagle
Period:Classical
Date:ca. 330–300 BCE
Culture:Greek
Medium:Gold
Dimensions:total H. 2 3/8 in. (6 cm); H. of rosette 1 in. (2.5 cm); H. of Ganymede group 1 3/16 in. (3 cm)
Classification:Gold and Silver
Credit Line:Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1937
Accession Number:37.11.9, .10
Said to be from near Thessaloniki
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1937. "The Ganymede Jewelry." Bulletin of the Metropolian Museum of Art, 32(12): pp. 290–94, figs. 2, 4.
Grancsay, Stephen V. 1940. "The Art of the Jeweler: A Special Exhibition." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 35(11): p. 216.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 156–57, 289, pl. 129c, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1970. "The Department of Greek and Roman Art: Triumphs and Tribulations." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 3: pp. 82, 85, fig. 23.
von Bothmer, Dietrich and Joan R. Mertens. 1982. The Search for Alexander: Supplement to the Catalogue. nos. S2–S3, p. 5, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Williams, Dyfri and Jack Ogden. 1994. Greek Gold: Jewelry of the Classical World. no. 31, p. 76, fig. 38, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
Schwarzmaier, Agnes. 2000. "Nachklänge berühmter Meisterwerke auf griechischen Klappspiegeln." From the Parts to the Whole: Acta of the 13th International Bronze Congress held at Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 28 - June 1, 1996, Carol Mattusch, Amy Brauer, and Sandra E. Knudsen, eds. p. 149 n. 33, Portsmith, R.I.: Journal of Roman Archaeology.
Woodford, Susan and Cambridge University Press. 2003. Images of Myths in Classical Antiquity. p. 121, fig. 88, Cambridge.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 197, pp. 170, 440, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Picón, Carlos A. 2009. "Glass and Gold of the Hellenistic and Early Roman World." Philippe de Montebello and the Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1977-2008, James R. Houghton, ed. pp. 19–20, fig. 30, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Sparkes, Brian. 2011. Greek Art, 2nd ed. pp. ix–x, 77–78, fig. 22, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lapatin, Kenneth. 2015. Luxus: The Sumptuous Arts of Greece and Rome. no. 29, pp. 67, 229, pl. 29, Los Angeles, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum.
Holcomb, Melanie. 2018. Jewelry : The Body Transformed pp. 104–6, pl. 81, New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Zanker, Paul, Seán Hemingway, Christopher S. Lightfoot, and Joan R. Mertens. 2019. Roman Art : A Guide through the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Collection. p. 30, fig. 22, New York: Scala Publishers.
Hemingway, Seán. 2021. How to Read Greek Sculpture. pp. 36–37, fig. 22, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than 30,000 works ranging in date from the Neolithic period to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312.
