Hermes (Collier's) - JC Leyendecker

Hermes (Collier's) - JC LeyendeckerA print of J. C. Leyendecker's Hermes the German American illustrator's rendering of the Greek messenger god, rendered in the clean, classicised figure style that defined American commercial illustration in the first quarter of the 20th century. Hermes was the messenger of the Olympian gods, patron of travellers, merchants, heralds and thieves, and the Psychopompos who led the souls of the newly dead to the underworld. His attributes winged sandals,

Walter Crane (1845–1915) was one of the defining Arts & Crafts illustrators of the late Victorian era

Piranesi's engravings of ancient Roman vases and urns

both of which treated it as a fable of the soul's trials in search of love

taking a weight of attention out of all proportion to its size — has become the typical form in which the period is encountered in museums

fought and defeated the Titans

In their cult at Sparta and Rome they were patrons of horsemen

adopted by Julius Caesar

the goddess of love and the beautiful mortal hunter who dies in her arms

It is now held at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli

A print of a Hellenistic Aphrodite torso — the surviving fragmentary body of a classical statue of the Greek goddess of love and beauty

the counterpoised hips (the classical contrapposto)

later traditions name him the son of Ares and Aphrodite