A Hellenistic Bronze Figure of Hermaphrodite , circa 2nd/1st Century B.C.

probably a candelabrum support, the ithyphallic deity standing with his left foot forward and holding up his right hand, and wearing sandals and himation covering the lower part of the body and falling in long folds to the feet from his left shoulder, his head turned to his left, his centrally parted wavy hair bound in a diadem, crowned with a stephane(?), gathered in a chignon at the back, surmounted by a flaring modius decorated with leaves in relief, and escaping in long wavy curls over the chest and back, the top of the modius open for insertion of a separate element.

J.J. Klejman, New York, 1960s-1972

Nose abraded, tip of proper left ring finger missing, otherwise very good.
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According to Ovid (Metamorphoses, IV, 285-388), Hermaphroditos was born on Mount Ida in Phrygia, the son of Hermes and Aphrodite. Leaving his native land and traveling through Asia Minor he encountered the nymph Salmacis, who fell madly in love with him but was rejected. One day when the youth was swimming in her spring she dove in and, joining with him in an inextricable embrace, prayed to and obtained from the gods that they be both transformed into a single bisexual being.

Most other known bronze figures of Hermaphrodite, although different in pose, attire, and attributes, also appear to have been designed and fitted as candelabrum supports (see A. Ajotian, "Hermaphroditos," Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, vol. V, 1990, p. 271).