#emperor hadrian x antinous

[breaker0fdays]

Dumb lil sketches of Antinous

[slips-of-sappho]

I had the great honor recently of seeing the relief that hung in Hadrian's own quarters

and wondered if, in his grief, Hadrian took the outstretched marble hand until it grew warm in his touch and whispered words of love behind marble curls into a delicate hidden ear

And then I wondered if Hadrian licked his nipple.

do yall know about this

[blueiscoool]

Roman Over Life-Size Statue of Antinous, Companion of Emperor Hadrian, as a Hunter 130-138 AD

Nude but for the paludamentun (cloak) over his left shoulder and arm, clasped on his right shoulder. He has the characteristic muscular development of Antinous, his boyish face, and mass of curls bound with a diadem. Limestone. H. 152 x w. 51 x d. 31.5 cm.

Antinous, also called Antinoös, (c. 111 – c. 130) was a Greek youth from Bithynia and a favourite and lover of the Roman emperor Hadrian. Following his premature death before his twentieth birthday, Antinous was deified on Hadrian's orders, being worshipped in both the Greek East and Latin West, sometimes as a god (θεός, theós) and sometimes merely as a hero (ἥρως, hḗrōs).

Little is known of Antinous's life, although it is known that he was born in Claudiopolis (present day Bolu, Turkey), in the Roman province of Bithynia et Pontus. He was probably introduced to Hadrian in 123, before being taken to Italy for a higher education. He had become the favourite of Hadrian by 128, when he was taken on a tour of the Roman Empire as part of Hadrian's personal retinue. Antinous accompanied Hadrian during his attendance of the annual Eleusinian Mysteries in Athens, and was with him when he killed the Marousian lion in Libya, an event highly publicised by the Emperor. In October 130, as they were part of a flotilla going along the Nile, Antinous died amid mysterious circumstances. Various suggestions have been put forward for how he died, ranging from an accidental drowning to an intentional human sacrifice or suicide.

Following his death, Hadrian deified Antinous and founded an organised cult devoted to his worship that spread throughout the Empire. Hadrian founded the city of Antinoöpolis close to Antinous's place of death, which became a cultic centre for the worship of Osiris-Antinous. Hadrian also founded games in commemoration of Antinous to take place in both Antinoöpolis and Athens, with Antinous becoming a symbol of Hadrian's dreams of pan-Hellenism. The worship of Antinous proved to be one of the most enduring and popular of cults of deified humans in the Roman empire, and events continued to be founded in his honour long after Hadrian's death.

[alexandreaiteiaabronia]

🪷 Carrara marble plaque of Antinous

Rare, fine quality Grand Tour elongated octaganal Carrara marble bas-relief profile plaque of Antinous, after the antique original, known as the Antinous Vaticano discovered at Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli in 1790 and now on permanent display in the Pio Clementione in the Vatican Museums. Regarded as the most beautiful man in the Roman world Antinous was both the favourite and lover of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. Italian, probably Rome, circa 1880.

H 23cm x W 19cm x D 2.5cm 🪷

[michael-svetbird]

HEADS | Roman | Palazzo Massimo: 👉 Pic 1. Left to Right:

ANTINOUS [Bithynian favoured by the emperor Hadrian], https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinous 130-138 AD, Late Hadrianic period, Medium grained white marble [from Villa Adriana, Tivoli, Lazio].

AMAZON [Mattei type], Roman copy of a Greek original by Phidias, Hadrianic period [117-138 AD], Parian marble [from Villa Adriana, Tivoli, 1928].

HYPNOS [a personification of], May derive from a late Hellenistic model of the 2nd-half 2 BC, Hadrianic period [117-138 AD], Fine grained white marble [from Villa Adriana, Tivoli, 1928].

FEMALE DEITY [a separately-made head for a statue], Roman interpretation of a Greek Severe Style models, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_style Hadrianic period [117-138 AD], Pentelic marble [from Villa Adriana, Tivoli, 1892].

FEMALE DEITY [a separately-made head for a statue], "Reminiscent of Greek models of the Attic school ca 460 BC", Hadrianic period [117-138 AD], Fine grained white marble [from Villa Adriana, Tivoli, 1927].

👉 Pic 2. Close-up of the Amazon's Head: "The head belongs to a group of Roman copies of a model generally attributed to Phidias" [Sanctuary of Artemis at Ephesos]: Amazon Mattei type from Cryptoporticus between the Libraries and the Stadium of Villa Adriana in Tivoli [Lazio], https://villae.cultura.gov.it/en Found in 1928, Hadrianic period [117-138 AD], Parian marble [Txt ©MNR PM].

Palazzo Massimo, Museo Nazionale Romano | MNR PM [First Floor, Sala VI.] • Web : https://museonazionaleromano.beniculturali.it/en/palazzo-massimo • FB : https://www.facebook.com/MNRomano • IG : @museonazionaleromano • X : @MNR_museo

MNR PM | Michael Svetbird phs©msp | 06|23 6300X4200 600 [I., II.] The photographed objects are collection items of MNR PM, photos are subject to copyrights. [non commercial use | sorry for the watermarks]

📸 Part of the "HEADS.Sculpture" MSP Online Photo-gallery:

👉 D-ART: https://www.deviantart.com/svetbird1234/gallery/78520831/heads-sculpture

👉 FB Album: https://www.facebook.com/media/set?set=a.1400262423675664&type=3

[flasummers]

i am narcissist enough to do edits about my own fanfiction (obviously cherik fanfiction) The Passerby - "(...) mourned are the absent lips of all the beautiful passersby we didn’t manage to not let go."

Erik flees from himself for too long, to the extent that he decides to travel to Rome. There, he falls in love - even if for a very short amount of time. He realizes that sometimes you look for something your whole life just to lose it very very easily.

In which there are references to Italian culture in general (singers, writers) and to Ancient Rome gayness. No Warnings to be underlined! If not a n g s t. 

- word count: 3271

- chapers: 1/1

( btw for this edit i used an amazing psd by @ierocaine that i downloaded from their deviantart and an aesthetic template, but I couldn’t find the source, so if someone knows it hit me up and I’ll credit the artist!! ) 

[h4nnibalism]

Chapters: 9/9 Fandom: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham & Hannibal Lecter, Molly Graham/Will Graham, Molly Graham & Will Graham, Antinous/Emperor Hadrian Characters: Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham, Barney Matthews, Molly Graham, Walter Graham, Chiyoh (Hannibal), Jack Crawford, Alana Bloom, Bedelia Du Maurier, Will Graham's Dogs, Clarice Starling, Multiple Miggs, Emperor Hadrian, Antinous (c. 111-130 CE), Original Characters Additional Tags: time did reverse… or did it?, Inception meets Angel Heart (kind of), with a heavy dose of hellinism, pining murder husbands, apex assholes, the space-time continuum is overrated, will graham makes questionable choices, even murderrific-er, don't piss off the mob, international adventures, multiversal mindfuckery, Poetry nerd!Will, lovesick cannibaes, these murder husbands are going to kill me, crescent city love, dat ass x 2, they flip (thank u bryan), no one is drunk enough for this shit, except maybe will, Murder Tableaus, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Smut, Slow Burn, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Season/Series 03 Series: Part 3 of A Thousand Savage Futures Summary:

A different kind of post-S3 story, wherein Hannibal and Will are thrown back into their respective pre-fall nightmares through chance and circumstance. A little bit Inception meets Angel Heart.

Severely injured and once again a resident of the BSHCI, Hannibal believes his worst fear has come true. Will, back home with Molly and Walt, finds himself torn in more directions than his loosening grip on reality can accommodate.

As their lives begin to unravel and the lines between memory, dream, and reality start to blur, both men must face the inevitable pull of their connection. Will they survive separation in this world—in any world? Or are they destined to be forever conjoined?

[witchmd13]

a moment for me to scream at “placed together and remembered for their love for almost 2000 years”.

Okay done now.

Another day another Merlin x Arthur reincarnation.

I’m actually losing my mind at the similarities they have with Merlin and Arthur. Hadrian literally turned antinous into a god. He created a cult for him and it was really popular. Even got to the west where antinous was worshiped as a Celtic god. Hadrian literally made an Egyptian priest deify him. He built statuses and an named an entire CITY after antinous. I’m

I can’t find much about antinous’ childhood, but they think he was sent to Rome to work as a page/servant to the emperor before he became his favourite. They say it was antinous’ wisdom that mad Hadrian notice him at first.

Also from what I can read, they were together EVERYWHERE. On every tour and every visit to every country, they went together.

Wikipedia puts the entry “antinous” under Hadrian’s religious activities sgshdhdgehsgeveveve

Also this from Wikipedia: “during their relationship, there’s no evidence that antinous ever used his influence over Hadrian for political or personal gain.”

At this point I’m 90% sure bbc took inspiration from them to write Merlin and Arthur’s relationship lmao

Hi thought some parallels would make you want to put your head through a wall with me :)

I’m. screaming. HOW HAVE I NOT HEARD OF THEM BEFORE?

“underwent a period of intense grieving” I WANNA CRY AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

one lover dies while their other half destroys themselves with grief. Now who could that be?

anyway

look at these two parallels too : (source)

1) Over the next three years, a relationship formed between Antinous and Hadrian. Antinous became the emperor’s “personal favorite” and was seen in Hadrian’s company more than his wife. 

2) Six years later, 136 CE, Hadrian adopted Lucius  Ceionius Commodus and made him his heir (as Hadrian and his wife never had kids.)

I’m -

actually speechless. like what? ohmygod? I NEED ANSWERS BBC

WTF

also from the same site : “I’m not saying Hadrian set the bar too high for the rest of us, but would your lover declare you a god after you died in a river under suspicious circumstances — making you a relevant historical figure for thousands of years to come?”

:D :D :D

[breaker0fdays]

Small and quick WIP of Hadrian and Antinous in the modern day

[breaker0fdays]

....and they were boys....and they kissed

another little quick modern Hadrian x Antinous

[alexandreaiteiaabronia]

Antinous: Festival of the Red Lotus

In August 22, the modern cult of Antinous celebrates the Festival of the Red Lotus, which is said to have sprung from the blood of the Marousian Lion hunted by Antinous and Hadrian.

The white and blue flowers native to Egypt and described as “lotus” in ancient Egyptian mythology and art are actually water lilies, members of the genus Nymphaea. Blooms of the blue Egyptian water lily Nymphaea caerulea open and close during daylight hours; the white Egyptian water lily Nymphaea lotus opens at dusk and closes in the mid-morning. Folk tales describe the flowers as rising from the water at dawn or dusk each day, but rather the buds form underwater and emerge above the water as the stems lengthen, open and close each day during the few days of bloom, and then sink beneath the water after the period of bloom is finished. The sinking below and rising above the water links the “lotus” with the mythology of rebirth.

The red Egyptian lotus Nelumbo nucifera is a member of the family Nelumbonaceae. Native to India, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. It seems to have been brought to Egypt in the Late Period, in the 6th or 7th centuries BCE. Its appearance is very different to the blue and white lilies, with rounded petals rising well above the water.

It is this flower which legend associates with Antinous. A poem from the reign of Diocletian (284 – 305 CE) links the Lion Hunt with the lotus:

The nymphs began to crown their tresses

With the flower named after Antinous,

Which to this day preserves

The mighty spear of the hunter.

Into the Nile he hurried for purification

Of the blood of the lion…

– Payprus Oxy. 63.4352 (X)

Another text from the 3rd century CE specifically mentions the color of the lotus of Antinous:

But since I have mentioned Alexandria, I know that in that beautiful city there is a garland called the garland of Antinous, which is made of the lotus, which grows in those parts. And this lotus grows in the marshes in the summer season; and it bears flowers of two colours; one like that of the rose, and it is the garlands woven of the flower of this colour which are properly called the garlands of Antinous; but the other kind is called the lotus garland, being of a dark colour. And a man of the name of Pancrates, a native poet, with whom we ourselves were acquainted, made a great parade of showing a rose-coloured lotus to [H]adrian the emperor, when he was staying at Alexandria, saying, that [p. 1082] he ought to give this flower the name of the Flower of Antinous, as having sprung from the ground where it drank in the blood of the Mauritanian lion, which Hadrian killed when he was out hunting in that part of Africa, near Alexandria; a monstrous beast which had ravaged all Libya for a long time, so as to make a very great part of the district desolate.

– Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists. Or Banquet Of The Learned Of Athenaeus. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1854. (X)

Ave, ave Antinoe! The red lotus reminds us of your courage. May we, too, rise after the struggles of life, and join you in the company of the immortals!

https://honorthegodsblog.wordpress.com/2018/08/22/antinous-festival-of-the-red-lotus/

[alexandreaiteiaabronia]

#Repost @mattiello_real

"Antinous", the story of an eternal smile that has spanned the course of the centuries, fascinating writers, poets and artists from time to time that Antinous himself have considered as the image that most embodies the absolute idea of ​​eternal beauty.

.

Neoclassical bust in bronze (36 x 38 cm)

which portrays Antinous, (27 November 110 or 111 - Egypt, 30 October 130) a young Greek known for the sentimental and amorous relationship he had with the Roman emperor Hadrian, who divinized him after his premature death in rather mysterious circumstances.

.

In his memory Hadrian founded cities, such as Antinopoli in Egypt, temples like the one in Villa Adriana or in Delphi in Greece, he ordered statues and busts that portrayed that beautiful and melancholy young man, like the gaze of the old emperor. It made him God, almost a sad Apollo entering Roman civilization.

.

In line with the homoerotic customs of the Greek world to which the emperor inspired his private conduct, Adriano passionately loved Antinous, no less for his qualities of character than for his extraordinary beauty.

.

"In Rome, when they see someone looking serious and without a beard he is a consul; when he has a long beard he is a philosopher; and if he is a boy he is an Antinous"

Montesquieu - "Voyage d'Italie" 1728.

.

"Little soul, tender and floating soul, companion of my body, which was your abode, you set out to descend into those pale, hard and naked places, where you will have to give up the games of Adriano and of the past. One more moment, let's look still together the familiar shores, the objects that no doubt we will never see again. Let's try to enter death with open eyes "

Marguerite Yourcenar - Memoirs of Hadrian

[alexandreaiteiaabronia]

🪷Antinous: Festival of the Red Lotus

In August 22, the modern cult of Antinous celebrates the Festival of the Red Lotus, which is said to have sprung from the blood of the Marousian Lion hunted by Antinous and Hadrian.

The white and blue flowers native to Egypt and described as “lotus” in ancient Egyptian mythology and art are actually water lilies, members of the genus Nymphaea. Blooms of the blue Egyptian water lily Nymphaea caerulea open and close during daylight hours; the white Egyptian water lily Nymphaea lotus opens at dusk and closes in the mid-morning. Folk tales describe the flowers as rising from the water at dawn or dusk each day, but rather the buds form underwater and emerge above the water as the stems lengthen, open and close each day during the few days of bloom, and then sink beneath the water after the period of bloom is finished. The sinking below and rising above the water links the “lotus” with the mythology of rebirth.

The red Egyptian lotus Nelumbo nucifera is a member of the family Nelumbonaceae. Native to India, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. It seems to have been brought to Egypt in the Late Period, in the 6th or 7th centuries BCE. Its appearance is very different to the blue and white lilies, with rounded petals rising well above the water.

It is this flower which legend associates with Antinous. A poem from the reign of Diocletian (284 – 305 CE) links the Lion Hunt with the lotus:

The nymphs began to crown their tresses

With the flower named after Antinous,

Which to this day preserves

The mighty spear of the hunter.

Into the Nile he hurried for purification

Of the blood of the lion…

– Payprus Oxy. 63.4352 (X)

Another text from the 3rd century CE specifically mentions the color of the lotus of Antinous:

But since I have mentioned Alexandria, I know that in that beautiful city there is a garland called the garland of Antinous, which is made of the lotus, which grows in those parts. And this lotus grows in the marshes in the summer season; and it bears flowers of two colours; one like that of the rose, and it is the garlands woven of the flower of this colour which are properly called the garlands of Antinous; but the other kind is called the lotus garland, being of a dark colour. And a man of the name of Pancrates, a native poet, with whom we ourselves were acquainted, made a great parade of showing a rose-coloured lotus to [H]adrian the emperor, when he was staying at Alexandria, saying, that [p. 1082] he ought to give this flower the name of the Flower of Antinous, as having sprung from the ground where it drank in the blood of the Mauritanian lion, which Hadrian killed when he was out hunting in that part of Africa, near Alexandria; a monstrous beast which had ravaged all Libya for a long time, so as to make a very great part of the district desolate.

– Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists. Or Banquet Of The Learned Of Athenaeus. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1854. (X)

Ave, ave Antinoe! The red lotus reminds us of your courage. May we, too, rise after the struggles of life, and join you in the company of the immortals!

"honorthegodsblog" 🪷

🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷

[alexandreaiteiaabronia]

Antinous

Artist: ANONYMOUS, AFTER THE ANTIQUE

Antinous 1800c. 1806

Marble | 171.0 x 56.5 x 49.0 cm (whole object) | RCIN 41036

Description

A full-length grey marble statue of Antinous, standing, looking straight ahead, in ancient Egyptian dress and headdress, his left leg forward, a palm tree stump behind his right leg; carrying bars in both hands.

Antinous was the lover and companion of the Roman emperor Hadrian. Hadrian regularly toured the Roman Empire, and probably first encountered Antinous during a visit to Bithynia in 123 AD. Hadrian installed Antinous in the Imperial Court, providing him with education and status. Though Hadrian was married, his relationship with Antinous was in keeping with Hellenic conventions that saw older men free to pursue consensual relationships with teenage men.

The statue's Egyptian trappings refer to his death by drowning in the Nile. It is a copy of an ancient statue excavated at Hadrian's villa at Tivoli during the sixteenth century, which has been displayed in the Vatican museums since the late eighteenth century. At that time it proved widely popular among neo-classical artists, and numerous copies were made.

This example was probably made in France in the early years of the nineteenth century. It may have been commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte as a gift to his brother Joseph, King of Naples. In 1806 it was seized from a French vessel while en route to Naples, by the British naval frigate Imperieuse. Sold at Gibraltar, it entered the possession of Mr George Ward of Northwood, Cowes, Isle of Wight.

At the sale of Northwood in 1850 it was purchased, as an antiquity, by Queen Victoria for Osborne.

[sagestreet]

Sculptures used on “Sherlock”

Okay, if I had even the slightest sliver of doubt that ‘Sherlock’ was telling us a gay love story, that doubt would be squashed now.

Behold the gayest statue of all statues!

1. In the episode ‘The Blind Banker’ (aka TBB, aka the episode that keeps on giving), there’s a statue of a gay God standing right in the middle between John and Sherlock:

(x)

This is not just any old statue. This is a sculpture of Antinous (around 130 AD) from ‘Hadrian’s Villa’ (now in the Vatican Museums).

Antinous was the (male) lover of the Emperor Hadrian. And Hadrian literally deified him, in other words, had him recognized as a God so he could be worshiped. Yep, a gay God!

That is the sculpture standing there between Sherlock and John in the foreground (!) of this shot – a sculpture that is an enormously important part of gay culture. I mean, yeah, tooootally a coincidence that it just happened to stand there; it obviously just took a stroll out of the Vatican Museums and walked right into a ‘Sherlock’ scene. Yeah. Where the camera man just tripped over himself and happened to film that scene from that angle. Yep.

Aaaand it’s a crotch shot that we got in said scene, and, no, that’s not a British Army Browning L9A1 we see under that thin loincloth, this statue is really just pleased to see us.:)

The sculpture also foreshadows Sherlock’s ‘death’ in TRF.

Because, you see, Antinous died in 130 AD, and Hadrian was inconsolable after his lover’s death, totally beside himself with grief, as a matter of fact. So, it’s kinda nice that they’re showing us this Antinous sculpture just as John and Sherlock sit down with Soo-Lin, who in the timeline of TBB is about to die too. (Cleverer people than I have already pointed out that Soo-Lin is actually a Sherlock mirror, so there you go...) 

We see Sherlock’s mirror who will die right after this very scene, and this obviously foreshadows Sherlock’s own “death” too (staged in his case). This statue tells us exactly what John will have to go through once Sherlock is “gone”. 

Well, Hadrian was so utterly destroyed by Antinous’ death that he had him deified. I’m not sure John will go quite so far in his grief between TRF and TEH, but it’s pretty close, I guess. 

(John didn’t exactly have a cultic centre of worship built over Sherlock’s “grave” and he didn’t name an entire city after him either, but other than that...well...)

Well, and if you want to read up on Antinous and Oscar Wilde or Antinous and 19th-century gay culture, there’s a lot of interesting stuff out there. Suffice it to say that Antinous is a gay icon. Nobody includes his statue in a frame without knowing what they’re doing.

By the way, there are actually lots and lots of statues of Antinous; the Emperor Hadrian loved him fiercely, after all. The set designers of ‘Sherlock’ could have chosen any of these for their scene.

And yet they chose this particular one: a statue that depicts Antinous dressed as the God Osiris. Osiris – the God of the afterlife, the underworld and the dead, which foreshadows Sherlock’s “death” again. 

However, Osiris was also the God of rebirth and regeneration. So, if we ever needed a hint that Sherlock was never actually going to die and would be “resurrected” in series 3, this statue in TBB already told us that.

In the Osiris myth, Osiris is killed by his brother, by the way. Isn’t it nice that this sculpture appears right before Soo-Lin is killed by her brother?

Oh, and there’s also a nice shot of the sculpture’s, erm, shapely backside in case you’re wondering:

And yes, somehow Sherlock and John ‘mysteriously’ ended up in the same frame. Again.

2. But the list of, shall we say, ‘interesting’ sculptures doesn’t end there. The second one on the list is...

...this one here. It’s the first sculpture we’re shown in TBB when, first Sherlock’s mirror Soo-Lin, and then later Sherlock himself find it covered in yellow graffiti:

This isn’t some random sculpture that just happened to stand around there either. It’s a very famous sculpture.

It’s the ‘Aphrodite of Knidos’ by Praxiteles. 

(BTW, don’t worry about some of the minor details here. The original Praxiteles sculpture is lost; only copies survive. And the details in all the reconstructed versions and variations of it differ from copy to copy and replica to replica.)

What’s interesting in our ‘Sherlock’ context is that this is a sculpture of the ‘Venus pudica’ type, meaning the ‘modest Venus’ type...because she is covering her genitals with her hand. (It’s actually the prototype of all later ‘Venus pudica’ type sculptures.)

What’s fascinating about her story is that the famous master Praxiteles caused a bit of a scandal when he created her. 

A fully life-sized statue of a naked woman who could be looked at from all sides had never been done before. (I’m sure Moftiss, too, are just relishing in the fact that they’re doing something that has never been done before.)

Anyway...so when Praxiteles finished the statue, there was an uproar because of her state of undress.

This is ironic in so far as the statue is actually modest: She is covering her pubic area with her hand.

So, a statue that today is known as a prime example and prototype of a ‘modest Venus’ caused a scandal because she was completely naked.

You could argue that this sculpture therefore is both exposed and hidden at the same time: Venus is fully naked and bare and yet also modest, covered and hidden. She inhabits both states at the same time.

Kinda like the story they’re actually telling us in ‘Sherlock’, right?

In TBB this story is still totally hidden from the casual viewer, yet the subtext (with Soo-Lin, her brother and her colleague Andy) is also fully exposed to us.

Soo-Lin’s story tells us everything about Sherlock, exposes him to us, and yet it’s all still modestly hidden away.

This is made even clearer by the fact that, in the beginning of the episode, Soo-Lin is the one to discover the sculpture. She discovers it first. And to really hammer that exposed-yet-hidden-sculpture metaphor home, the sculpture itself is hidden under a white cloth here:

Soo Lin then unveils the sculpture (ie, the subtext) for us:

And later it’s Sherlock who finds the sculpture (I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that it’s neither John nor Andy who find it) and thus shows us directly that there’s a parallel between him and Soo-Lin because they’re both looking at the same sculpture (read: the same subtext).

In Sherlock’s case the sculpture isn’t covered by a cloth anymore. Soo-Lin has already removed the cloth for him. The sculpture is now fully exposed. And yet it’s still covered...covered in yellow graffiti. It’s covered by the code. In other words, the fully-exposed-yet-modestly-hiding-her-nakedness Venus (ie, the subtext) is covered in code. The subtext is still hidden behind a code!

And don’t even get me started on the fact that the subtext is represented by a Venus statue here – by a statue of the Goddess of Love.

3. When Andy enquires after Soo-Lin, there’s another sculpture in the museum’s restoration room:

It’s probably a sculpture of the ‘Venus Anadyomene’ type (a half-draped Venus, re-emerging after her bath), but I can’t be sure which sculpture it is exactly, not with the head missing and from that distance. 

If I were to guess, I’d say it’s a sculpture in the vein of the Venus Landolina. (The Museum Kassel has a nice one of that type, too. Just to give you an idea of what they typically look like.)

In any case, this Anadyomene-type Venus sculpture is half-draped and thus half covered and half exposed – like the subtext of the show.

What’s particularly fascinating is the fact that this time there is a clear erotic connotation to it: This Anadyomene-type Venus is coquettishly showing us her barely covered buttocks. 

Which makes sense since the subtext is definitely sexual now too: Andy is interested in Soo-Lin, and since the two of them are mirrors for John and Sherlock, you can guess what a half-naked beautiful Venus statue, enticingly showing us her shapely behind is supposed to mean.

Unless this is literally Moftiss mooning us via their subtext.:)

And don’t forget: Of all the statues they could have chosen, they chose Venus, the Goddess of Love, to represent the subtext here.

The fact that this sexual subtext (the sculpture!) is literally headless is just an added little gag.:) Well, we all lose our heads when we fall head over heels, I suppose...

4. And now we come to the best part. Really. I mean, did I call that Antinous sculpture above the gayest statue of all statues? 

Did I?

I take it all back. Here comes the gayest sculpture in the world...

In the same scene, while Andy and his boss talk about Soo-Lin (and the fact that Andy is interested in her), there is a bust sitting right between them:

I think I spewed tea all over my computer screen when I saw it and then screamed for a good minute and berated myself for not having noticed it when I watched TBB for the first time.

Because this is the freaking ‘Apollo Belvedere’! I’m not sure if there is a more iconic sculpture in the history of gay culture. 

It’s a partial copy obviously, not the whole thing. (Probably a bust like this one here.)

Now, you might wonder: What is this epitome of male beauty, that countless artists (and gay idiots such as myself) have been swooning over for centuries, doing in a scene between Andy and his boss? Why is it sitting there between them as though it were the topic of their conversation?

Well, because it is. Their. Topic. Of. Conversation.

They are talking about Soo-Lin and Andy’s interest in her. But, as cleverer people than I have pointed out time and again, Soo-Lin is a mirror for Sherlock.

This is the show’s ultimate proof that the Soo-Lin/Sherlock mirror is, in fact, a thing!

They talk about Soo-Lin, but the show means Sherlock. That’s why the sculpture is there.

This sculpture also tells us what the show runners think of Sherlock in particular: Epitome of male beauty! Unparalleled among men. There to be swooned over. The ideal man. Beautiful, masculine, curly-haired, elegant, perfectly muscled Apollo. 

Yeah, you can probably see why I spewed out that tea and woke up the entire house.:) 

And we thought the Vitruvian Watson collage was good. Ha!

How important is this sculpture for gay culture?

Well, let’s just say that it was described, celebrated even, by one Johann Joachim Winckelmann, yes, that famous German archeologist and Classicist scholar. I still remember how, decades ago, we learned about Winckelmann’s ecstatic description of the Apollo Belvedere at school and how our teacher gave a dry chuckle and stated that Winckelmann was himself “an ardent admirer of the male form”. 

Yeah, Winckelmann didn’t just happen to be gay; he was exultingly and vibrantly gay. And that in 18th century Germany. And pretty much revered by his contemporaries for his re-discovery of all those Greek, Roman and Greco-Roman sculptures, revered for his love of male bodies even.

(Hard to imagine, but dividing history into the bad times before the 1960s and the good times afterwards isn’t a particularly helpful concept. History is usually more complicated than that.)

If you need a tea-spewing moment, too, this is Winckelmann’s famous rant on the ‘Apollo Belvedere’, the very sculpture that was pretty much likened to Sherlock in the scene above. Homoerotically-charged doesn’t even begin to cover it:

“[...] His sublime gaze, as if peering into infinity, reaches out for the height of his contentment to far beyond his victory. Scorn sits upon his lips, and the displeasure that he contains within swells the nostrils of his nose and spreads upward to his proud brow. But the tranquilly that hovers over him in a blissful stillness remains undisturbed, and his eyes are full of sweetness, as if he were among the Muses as they seek to embrace him…. His soft hair plays about this divine head like the tender, waving tendrils of the noble grapevine stirred, as it were, by a gentle breeze: it seems anointed with the oil of the gods and bound at the crown of his head with lovely splendor by the Graces. In gazing upon this masterpiece of art, I forget all else, and I myself adopt an elevated stance, in order to be worthy of gazing upon it. My chest seems to expand with veneration and to heave like those I have seen swollen as if by the spirit of prophecy, and I feel myself transported to Delos and to the Lycian groves, places Apollo honored with his presence — for my figure seems to take on life and movement, like Pygmalion’s beauty. How is it possible to pant and describe it! [...]” (Winckelmann: Apollo im Belvedere. Beschreibung desselben, 1764)

Yeah, I know, right...

And in case we wouldn’t get it the first time, they made sure the Apollo Belvedere turned up again in this scene here where Sherlock surprises Soo-Lin in the darkened museum:

We see Sherlock and his mirror Soo-Lin, and the freaking Apollo Belvedere (yellow circle) is looking right over their shoulder to make sure that we really, really get it: Hey, dear viewer, when we were talking about Andy’s sexual/romantic interest in Soo-Lin we were actually talking about Sherlock.

Also, did you notice our Anadyomene-type Venus is standing right between them (red circle)? That’s right: the statue that just screams subtext is between them and can be seen above that tea pot (!) Soo-Lin is holding in her hand. They even illuminated the statue from the back as if to point out to us that the subtext is important.

Well, and then there’s, of course, the tea pot in the foreground of the frame. But others have written a lot about the drink code already, so I’m not going to go into that.

So, in conclusion, let me just say that, no, I don’t believe any of these sculptures were put there by accident; they all add an, erm, ‘interesting’ layer to the subtext of the show. 

ADDENDUM

Sherlock - Goethe - Winckelmann

Just in case you’re interested: 

A lot of people have already pointed out that there are parallels between Goethe’s ‘Werther’ and Sherlock, and that Sherlock owns a first edition of ‘Faust’.

Well, just to add to what I said about Winckelmann and his enthusiasm for the Apollo Belvedere above: 

It’s not just that Goethe was one of the many admirers of Winckelmann (and endorsed the Apollo Belvedere statue himself, too), no, Goethe actually knew full well that Winckelmann was gay and acknowledged it with a rather surprising nonchalance (for the time). In his 1805 treatise on Winckelmann, Goethe acknowledged not just Winckelmann’s sexual preferences, but also the fact these were inextricably tied to Winckelmann being such a great scholar and sculpture expert in the first place.

Yes, Goethe was definitely ahead of his time.

Granted, Goethe was no stranger to the occasional hearty ha-ha-they’re-all-camp-and-have-sex-from-behind kinda joke, but Goethe made jokes like that about everyone’s sex life, and I have to admit that they’re usually pretty funny.

But yes, Goethe, with his views on Winckelmann’s sexuality and male-male attraction in general, was definitely ahead of his time and would have still been ahead of his time some 100 or even 150 years later.

But this is a general feature of Goethe’s ideas. And this might be one of the reasons why our Sherlock likes him. Goethe was ahead of his time on almost everything.

(Think of Goethe’s ‘Faust’ and Faust’s ideas about pantheism, for example. The religious mores of Goethe’s time weren’t exactly that modern yet. Or think of how Goethe predicted the development of industrialised societies in ‘Faust’.)

Goethe was massively ahead of his time, and I think it’s a great gag that Sherlock who dreams of himself as a Victorian man in the 19th century who is ahead of his time likes an actual 19th-century man and author who was also, in turn, ahead of his time.

Well, and to give you one last reason for why Sherlock could have picked up that ‘Faust’ edition:

Faust is M-Theory. 

Well, in a way. 

(By the way: Yay! I’ve finally managed to read LSiTV’s google drive folder! It’s brilliant.)

Anyway...throughout ‘Faust’ we get all these hints that Mephisto (the devil!) is kinda camp and constantly hints at having anal sex with his daemons. Yes, brazen-faced and obscene like Moriarty, basically.

We also have Faust (and who could be more Faustian than Sherlock in his quest ‘to understand what holds the world together at its core’) who is shown in his dealings with the devil and who honestly thinks that the whole story is about him and the devil, no other players involved.

In the end (at the end of ‘Faust II’), though, this turns out to be wrong: The devil who comes to collect Faust’s soul, which he has desired for so long, doesn’t get it. 

We find out that God still has a trick up his sleeve. 

Because the whole story was not one between Faust and the devil, it was actually a plot between the devil and God (Mycroft). So, yes, in a sense, you can read ‘Faust’ as M-Theory. If you want.

NOTES

One more Sculpture (representing John): here.

Two Lion Sculptures (representing John): here.

The bust in Magnussen’s Mind Palace is actually a statue: here.

More sculptures I’ve spotted on ‘Sherlock’: HERE.

And if you want to read something about the paintings used on the set of ‘Sherlock’, I wrote a little piece about the paintings on the walls of the home of Sir and Lady Carmichael in ‘The Abominable Bride’ (TAB) here.

All screencaps were taken from here.

[h4nnibalism]

Chapters: 1/9 Fandom: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham & Hannibal Lecter, Molly Graham/Will Graham, Molly Graham & Will Graham, Antinous/Emperor Hadrian Characters: Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham, Barney Matthews, Molly Graham, Walter Graham, Chiyoh (Hannibal), Jack Crawford, Alana Bloom, Bedelia Du Maurier, Will Graham's Dogs, Clarice Starling, Multiple Miggs, Emperor Hadrian, Antinous (c. 111-130 CE), Original Characters Additional Tags: time did reverse… or did it?, inception meets angel heart (kind of), with a heavy dose of hellinism, pining murder husbands, apex assholes, the space-time continuum is overrated, will graham makes questionable choices, even murderrific-er, don't piss off the mob, international adventures, multiversal mindfuckery, Poetry nerd!Will, lovesick cannibaes, these murder husbands are going to kill me, crescent city love, dat ass x 2, they flip (thank u bryan), no one is drunk enough for this shit, except maybe will, Murder Tableaus, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Smut Series: Part 3 of A Thousand Savage Futures Summary:

A different kind of post-S3 story, wherein Hannibal and Will are thrown back into their respective pre-fall nightmares through chance and circumstance. A little bit Inception meets Angel Heart.

Severely injured and once again a resident of the BSHCI, Hannibal believes his worst fear has come true. Will, back home with Molly and Walt, finds himself torn in more directions than his loosening grip on reality can accommodate.

As their lives begin to unravel and the lines between memory, dream, and reality start to blur, both men must face the inevitable pull of their connection. Will they survive separation in this world—in any world? Or are they destined to be forever conjoined?