{"product_id":"pomegranate-dmcel27","title":"Pomegranate","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e2026\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePencil and compressed charcoal on Sicilian \u003cem\u003eperlato\u003c\/em\u003e limestone\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e272 x 200 x 33mm, framed\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm;\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;\"\u003eThis drawing depicts a small nineteenth-century bronze sculpture of unknown authorship in the Wallace Collection, London. The bronze is a copy of a probably Roman marble (known as the \u003ci\u003eBerlin Hermaphroditus\u003c\/i\u003e) at the Altes Museum, Berlin, which itself is presumably the copy of a lost Greek original. That makes my drawing the copy of a copy of a copy: specifically a copy on limestone of a bronze copy of a marble copy of a probably bronze original. \u003co:p\u003e\u003c\/o:p\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm;\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;\"\u003eLike the more famous Roman \u003ci\u003eSleeping Hermaphrodite\u003c\/i\u003e, the sculpture is almost tender in the announcement of its binary gender.\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eThe title \u003ci\u003ePomegranate\u003c\/i\u003e, however, derives from a tiny detail in the drawing’s ornamental backdrop. The juxtaposition is a coincidence (the backdrop is a fragment of the frame enclosing Ary Scheffer’s 1835 \u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;\"\u003eFrancesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta appraised by Dante and Virgil\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;\"\u003e, also in the Wallace Collection and hung by chance behind the sculpture), yet a fitting one: according to J. C. Cirlot’s \u003ci\u003eA Dictionary of Symbols\u003c\/i\u003e, ‘the predominating significance of the pomegranate, arising from its shape and internal structure rather than from its colour, is the reconciliation of the multiple and diverse within apparent unity’. \u003co:p\u003e\u003c\/o:p\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 12.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;\"\u003eThe object in the figure’s right hand is faithful to the Berlin marble, where it is in fact the broken fragment of what will likely have been (according to Marie Delcourt’s scholarly book \u003ci\u003eHermaphrodite\u003c\/i\u003e) a thyrsus: the staff characteristically borne by the followers of Dionysus. In the bronze, however, it can never have been anything but the short rod or baton that it remains; it was modelled and then cast in that form from the beginning. Like the consular batons of Rome, the Field-Marshal’s batons of later centuries or the sceptres of kings and queens, it has become a token of power. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"IT\" style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-ansi-language: IT;\"\u003e\u003co:p\u003e\u003c\/o:p\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Dominic McElwee","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67702288646370,"sku":"DMcEl27","price":800.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0647\/1915\/9522\/files\/Pomegranate.png?v=1792027478","url":"https:\/\/gallery33.co.nz\/products\/pomegranate-dmcel27","provider":"Gallery 33 New Zealand","version":"1.0","type":"link"}