The Hellenistic period introduced the accurate characterization of age. Young children enjoyed great favor, whether in mythological form, as baby Herakles or Eros, or in genre scenes, playing with each other or with pets. This Eros, god of love, has been brought down to earth and disarmed, a conception considerably different from that of the powerful, often cruel, and capricious being so often addressed in Archaic poetry. One of the few bronze statues to have survived from antiquity, this figure of a plump baby in relaxed pose conveys a sense of the immediacy and naturalistic detail that the medium of bronze made possible. He is clearly based on firsthand observation. The support on which the god rests is a modern addition, but the work originally would have had a separate base, most likely of stone.

This statue is the finest example of its kind. Judging from the large number of extant replicas, the type was popular in Hellenistic and, especially, Roman times. In the Roman period, Sleeping Eros statues decorated villa gardens and fountains. Their function in the Hellenistic period is less clear. They may have been used as dedications within a sanctuary of Aphrodite or possibly may have been erected in a public park or private, even royal, garden.

Said to have been found on Rhodes (Richter 1943-44, p. 122).

[1930, purchased by Joseph Brummer from E. Geladakis, Paris]; acquired in 1943, purchased from Joseph Brummer, New York.

Richter, Gisela M.A. 1943. "A Bronze Eros." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 2(3): pp. 118-25.

Richter, G. M. A. 1943. "A Bronze Eros." American Journal of Archaeology 47 (October-December): 365-78, figs. 1-7, 13.

von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1949. "The Classical Contribution to Western Civilization." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 7(8): p. 208.

Richter, G.M.A. 1950. Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 68, 390, fig. 121.

Charbonneaux, J. 1962. Greek Bronzes. Translated by K. Watson. New York: Viking, p. 129, pl. XXV, 3.

Forsyth, W. H. 1974. "Acquisitions from the Brummer Gallery." In The Grand Gallery at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 2, fig. 1.

Mertens, Joan R. 1985. "Greek Bronzes in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 43(2): no. 34, pp. 52-54, 63, 65.

Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1986. Vol. 3, "Eros," p. 916, no. 780a, pl. 654. Zürich: Artemis.

Söldner, M. 1986. Untersuchungen zu liegenden Eroten in der hellenistischen und römischen Kunst. Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang, vol. 2, p. 605, no. 17.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1987. Greece and Rome. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, no. 53, pp. 10, 72-73.

Mattusch, C. C. 1996. Classical Bronzes: The Art and Craft of Greek and Roman Statuary. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, pp. 161, 163, 165, fig. 5.9, a-c, pl. 4.

Zimmer, G. and N. Hackländer. 1997. Der betende Knabe. Original und Experiment. Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang, p. 52, pl. 21.2.

Mattusch, C. C. 1998. "Rhodian Sculpture: A School, a Style, or Many Workshops?" In Regional Schools in Hellenistic Sculpture, edited by O. Palagia and W. Coulson. Oxford: Oxbow, p. 154, fig. 10.

Beaumont, L. A. 2003. "The Changing Face of Childhood." In J. Neils and J. H. Oakley et al., Coming of Age in Ancient Greece: Images of Childhood from the Classical Past. New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 81, fig. 20.

Kunze, C. 2003. "Die Konstruktion einer realen Begegnung: zur Statue des Barberinischen Fauns in München." In Neue Forschungen zur hellenistischen Plastik. Kolloquium zum 70. Geburtstag von Georg Daltrop, edited by G. Zimmer. Eichstätt-Ingolstadt : Katholische Universität, pp. 39-47, figs. 13-16.

Neils, J. and J.H. Oakley. 2003. Coming of Age in Ancient Greece. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 80-1, fig. 20.

Burn, L. 2004. Hellenistic Art: From Alexander the Great to Augustus. London: British Museum Press, p. 148, fig. 85.

Hemingway, S. 2004. The Horse and Jockey from Artemision: A Bronze Equestrian Monument of the Hellenistic Period. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 7-9, fig. 5.

Picón, C. A., et al. 2007. Art of the Classical World in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 451, no. 240, ill. pp. 206-7.

Hemingway, S. 2007. "From Gods to Grotesques. Hellenistic Bronze Scupture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art." Apollo (May): 50-56, fig. 1.