"Sleeping Eros" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bronze statue of Eros sleeping

Bronze statuette of Aphrodite

Pair of gold earrings with a disk and Eros

Terracotta statuette of Eros playing a lyre

Sleeping Eros is an ongoing exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art about the representation of Eros, the Greek god of love during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The exhibit, which is at the Mezzanine of the Greek and Roman Galleries, continues through June 23rd.

From the Mteropolitan Museum of Art official website:

Eros, the Greek god of love, was capable of overpowering the minds of all gods and mortals. According to an early myth, Gaia (goddess of the Earth) and Eros were the source of all creation. Literary references of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. often portray Eros as a cruel, capricious being who causes burning desire. In Classical art he is usually represented as a beautiful winged youth. During the Hellenistic period (323–31 B.C.) a new image of the god as a baby took hold. The popularity of that iconography is linked to the myth of Eros being the son of Aphrodite, born of her affair with Ares (god of war). The most innovative and influential representation of Eros during the Hellenistic and the Roman periods was of Eros sleeping.

The Metropolitan’s bronze statue Sleeping Eros is the finest example of its kind. Scholars have long wondered whether it is an original Hellenistic work or a very fine Roman Imperial copy. Variations of the type are known from hundreds of sculptures, which, to judge from the number of extant replicas and adaptations, was one of the most popular ever produced in Roman Imperial times. It was also among the earliest of the ancient statues rediscovered during the Renaissance, when artists revisited the theme. This exhibition presents the results of a recent study of the Museum's statue, utilizing scientific and technical analyses as well as art-historical research, which supports its identification as a Hellenistic bronze but one that was restored in antiquity, likely during the Roman Imperial period.