Mars

Inscriptions

Not signed.

Label

Allegorical representations of Mars were popular among elite European audiences in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, making militaristic imagery part of domestic interiors and collections. The ancient god of war, Mars was understood in the seventeenth century as the model warrior. Although now missing the staff or sword that he would have held in his raised right hand, this figure wears the garments of a Roman fighter. He poses elegantly. The muscles of his arms ripple visibly beneath his skin, suggesting Mars’s strength and readiness for battle when it calls. The figure may have stood on a table or in a cabinet to enable its patron to reflect on courage and conflict.

From the 2023 exhibition Recording War: Images of Violence 1500 – 1900, curated by Elizabeth Rice Mattison, Andrew W. Mellon Associate Curator of Academic Programming

The objects on this table evoke an early modern collector’s home—perhaps a studiolo in the Italian peninsula or a cabinet or Kunstkammer north of the Alps. Between 1400 and 1750, Europeans lived with, and expressed themselves through, sculpture. Three-dimensional and tactile, sculpture was regularly handled and moved, and spaces for exhibition in the early modern home facilitated active engagement with these works.

The sculptures in this grouping relate to the 15th- and 16th-century interest in Humanism, a tradition of learning with roots in Greek and Roman sources that emphasizes agency and inquiry. Sculptures of classical subjects like Arion or biblical ones like Eve could serve as prompts for conversation and debate about morality, philosophy, and literature. In this way, collections offered social spaces that connected friends, scholars, and rivals.

From the 2024 exhibition Living with Sculpture: Presence and Power in Europe, 1400–1750, curated by Elizabeth Rice Mattison, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programming and Curator of European Art, and Ashley B. Offill, Curator of Collections

Course History

ARTH 27.02, Living Stone: Sculpture in Early Modern Italy, Elizabeth Kassler-Taub, Winter 2022

ARTH 27.02, Living Stone: Sculpture in Early Modern Italy, Elizabeth Kassler-Taub, Winter 2022

ARTH 27.02, Living Stone: Sculpture in Early Modern Italy, Elizabeth Kassler-Taub, Winter 2022

ARTH 27.02, Living Stone: Sculpture in Early Modern Italy, Elizabeth Kassler-Taub, Winter 2022

Anthropology 3.01, Introduction to Anthropology, Charis Ford Morrison Boke 1, Summer 2023

Studio Art 27.01/28.01/74.01, Printmaking I/II/III, Josh Dannin, Summer 2023

History 42.01, Women's Gender, and Sexuality Studies 22.01, Gender & European Society, Patrick Meehan, Spring 2024

History 96.39, Saints and Relics, Cecilia Gaposchkin, Spring 2024

Italian 1.01, Introductory Italian I, Noemi Perego, Spring 2024

Italian 11.01, Intensive Italian, Floriana Ciniglia, Spring 2024

Italian 2.01, Introductory Italian II, Floriana Ciniglia, Spring 2024

Italian 3.01, Introductory Italian III, Tania Convertini, Spring 2024

Italian 3.02, Introductory Italian III, Giorgio Alberti, Spring 2024

Facilitated Experience: Special Tour - From Goya to Photojournalism, Summer 2023

Exhibition History

European Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, William B. Jaffe and Evelyn A. Jaffe Hall Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 30, 2008-March 8, 2009.

Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 4, 2005-January 14, 2008.

Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, November 16, 1992-June 22, 1997.

Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 16, 1997-October 15, 2000.

Living with Sculpture: Presence and Power in Europe, 1400–1750, Citrin Family Gallery and Engles Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 23, 2024–March 22, 2025.

Recording War: Images of Violence, 1500-1900, Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, May 20-December 9, 2023.

Publication History

Gazette des Beaux-Arts, page 31, illustration

T. Barton Thurber, European Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2008, pp. 41, ill., no. 9.

Provenance

Early collection history unknown; May 31, 1986 Sotheby's European Works of Arts, Sale 5466, lot 79 purchased by Blumka Gallery, New York, New York; 1986-1988 collection of Blumka Gallery; 1988 purchased by Dartmouth College from Blumka Gallery.

This record is part of an active database that includes information from historic documentation that may not have been recently reviewed. Information may be inaccurate or incomplete. We also acknowledge some language and imagery may be offensive, violent, or discriminatory. These records reflect the institution’s history or the views of artists or scholars, past and present. Our collections research is ongoing.

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Subjects