The personification of sleep. Hypnos is usually depicted in ancient Greek art as a winged boy, or an adolescent with wings in his hair. The arms of the statue have been lost, but other ancient depictions in art and literature suggest that he would have been holding an opium poppy in his left hand, and pouring out sleep from a horn in his right.
This is a Roman copy of a Greek original. Hypnos was a rare subject for sculptors, more often found in vase paintings. When he does appear, it is often in close association with the figure of Thanatos, symbolising death
Madrid, Prado 39
Purchased in 1922
Lippold: Griechische Plastik, 252 (n.7), pl. 91.4
Schrader: Hypnos (Winckelmannsprogramm 85 [1926]), 3-
Arndt & Amelung: Photografische Einzelaufnahmen Antiker Skulpturen, series VI, 1549-50
Arndt: Brunn-Bruckmann, Denkmäler Griechischer und Römischer Skulptur, 529
Klein: Praxiteles, chapter 6, 133-, figs.19-20; for list of replicas, 136 (n.1)
Mattusch: Classical Bronzes, 155
From the collection of the Duke of Frias (?)
