Mars

Inscriptions

Not signed.

Label

Allegorical representations of Mars were popular among elite European audiences in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, making militaristic imagery part of domestic interiors and collections. The ancient god of war, Mars was understood in the seventeenth century as the model warrior. Although now missing the staff or sword that he would have held in his raised right hand, this figure wears the garments of a Roman fighter. He poses elegantly. The muscles of his arms ripple visibly beneath his skin, suggesting Mars’s strength and readiness for battle when it calls. The figure may have stood on a table or in a cabinet to enable its patron to reflect on courage and conflict.

From the 2023 exhibition Recording War: Images of Violence 1500 – 1900, curated by Elizabeth Rice Mattison, Andrew W. Mellon Associate Curator of Academic Programming

Course History

ARTH 27.02, Living Stone: Sculpture in Early Modern Italy, Elizabeth Kassler-Taub, Winter 2022

ARTH 27.02, Living Stone: Sculpture in Early Modern Italy, Elizabeth Kassler-Taub, Winter 2022

ARTH 27.02, Living Stone: Sculpture in Early Modern Italy, Elizabeth Kassler-Taub, Winter 2022

ARTH 27.02, Living Stone: Sculpture in Early Modern Italy, Elizabeth Kassler-Taub, Winter 2022

Exhibition History

European Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, William B. Jaffe and Evelyn A. Jaffe Hall Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 30, 2008-March 8, 2009.

Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 4, 2005-January 14, 2008.

Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, November 16, 1992-June 22, 1997.

Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 16, 1997-October 15, 2000.

Recording War: Images of Violence, 1500-1900, Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, May 20-December 9, 2023.

Publication History

Gazette des Beaux-Arts, page 31, illustration

T. Barton Thurber, European Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2008, pp. 41, ill., no. 9.

Provenance

Early collection history unknown; May 31, 1986 Sotheby's European Works of Arts, Sale 5466, lot 79 purchased by Blumka Gallery, New York, New York; 1986-1988 collection of Blumka Gallery; 1988 purchased by Dartmouth College from Blumka Gallery.

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Subjects