Battle of the sexes

Satyrs are invariably priapic. Representations of these insatiable woodland deities, part man, part beast, first proliferated during the 3rd century BC in response to the growing cult of Dionysus, Greek god of wine and all its associated pleasures. For the Romans, these hybrid creatures were men with the ears, tail, legs and horns of a goat. Sometimes grotesque or foolishly befuddled by wine, often lithe and handsome, they were almost always in pursuit of nymphs – nature spirits who took the form of lovely young women desired by gods and mortals alike. Once in a while, they caught them.

A famous 2nd-century Roman marble group of one such encounter, probably based on a Hellenistic original, survives near complete in only three versions. One is in the Capitoline Museums in Rome, another among the Townley Marbles in the British Museum. The third, acquired before 1905 by the phenomenally wealthy American, William Waldorf Astor, later Viscount Astor of Hever, is offered by Bonhams in the Antiquities sale in December. All three are almost identical – except, tellingly, for the position and expressions of the heads. These crucial differences allow for dramatically different interpretations of the scene and its outcome.

Not all the heads are originals. That of the Capitoline nymph is missing, those of the other two nymphs are later replacements, as is the head of the Hever satyr. While these Hever heads are believed to be 16th-century restorations, the Townley nymph is known to have been restored in Rome in the 18th century by the sculptor Giovanni Pierantoni, known as ‘Il Sposino’, chief restorer of antiquities in the Vatican. How these sculptors, ancient and modern, dealt with their subject is fascinating.

What we see, incontrovertibly, is a tussle. The muscular young satyr has grabbed the nymph around the waist, pulled her down and pinned her between his thighs. He is visibly aroused – as she has good reason to be aware. Surprised, she turns towards her assailant, attempting to dislodge his grip under her breast with one hand and, grasping a clump of his hair with the fingers of the other, to lever herself up by pushing against his forehead.

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There is no mistaking the rebutted satyr’s pain in the Capitoline version, the traditionally snub-nosed deity grimacing, eyes closed. Sadly, we have no idea of his nymph’s response. He looks marginally less beleaguered in the Townley group, and in the Renaissance-period Hever head – more human, more handsome, albeit with goat-like pointed ears – he looks at her with an expression more of pleasure and anticipation. The unhappy nymph here, her brow slightly furrowed, is not looking at him but upwards, as if pleading for divine intervention. Coolly classical, her expression is more histrionic and stylised than naturalistic.

A quite different dynamic is offered by the Townley group. Here, the distinctly 18th-century nymph turns back towards her assailant looking almost amused and indulgent, a half-smile playing on her lips. This nymph may not be unamenable to his advances. At the very least, she dismisses them as the usual kind of satyr antics and appears to feel herself not unduly threatened.

This sexual tension, the play of attraction and repulsion, runs throughout the art of the Classical world. The ambiguities inherent in these three nymph and satyr groups perhaps tell us as much about the mores and tastes of the periods in which these sculptures were restored as those of the Greek and Roman worlds which produced them. The response they generate in the #MeToo generation similarly will speak volumes about ours.

That nymphs, satyrs and their like were not human lent a cloak of respectability to the viewing of images of nudity and sexual violence in the modern, Judaeo-Christian era, just as it gave licence to the fertile imaginations – and sexual fantasies – of artists from the Renaissance onwards, from Parmigianino in the 16th century via Fuseli to Picasso in the 20th century. The uninhibited ancients had no concept of sins of the flesh, or of sex as justified only as a means of procreation. Sex was a natural part of all aspects of their life – and representations are often more ribald and comedic than erotic. The Romans who copied and adapted Greek figure groups such as this put them in their gardens for all to see. So did the wealthy collectors who claimed them after their rediscovery. William Waldorf Astor was no exception.

Astor acquired his marble from the renowned Florentine antiquarian, collector and dealer Stefano Bardini, supplier to many of the world’s most important museums and wealthiest collectors. Unusually, Bardini meticulously recorded the thousands of works of art that passed through his hands using the new technology of photography. His photographic archive, only discovered during the renovation of the Museo Bardini in 1975 and 1976, includes this group. Nothing is known of the earlier history of the sculpture, although its restorations have been compared to the work of Giovanni Bandini and Domenico Poggini, assistants to the successful 16th-century Florentine sculptor Baccio Bandinelli.

Astor’s education by private tutors in Germany and Italy marked his life. It inspired an interest in Greek philosophy and a passion for Italy. In 1882, he was appointed the equivalent of the American ambassador to Italy and promptly rented the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi in Rome, with its garden nymphaeum of grottoes and river gods. Interest turned into something like obsession after he visited the hauntingly beautiful city of Pompeii, frozen in time after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 poignantly preserved its buildings, artefacts and citizens almost intact. It seems as though Astor wanted to recreate the spirit of the place, or his feelings for it, in his various residences. Gathering huge quantities of antiquities from Attilio Simonetti in Rome and Bardini in Florence, he sent them to the Villa Astor near Sorrento, and to his two English country houses, Cliveden House in Buckinghamshire and Hever Castle in Kent. Perhaps his only real rivals as collectors were J. Pierpont Morgan and William Randolph Hearst.

It was at Hever Castle that the Nymph and Satyr found their resting place for some 80 years. The home of two of Henry VIII’s wives, the medieval moated house was romantic but neglected. Astor bought it in 1903, four years after a family feud persuaded him to become a British citizen. He spent another fortune restoring the place, building additional accommodation and an Italian Garden with loggia, fountains, cascades and grottoes, complete with a 38-acre lake that took around 800 labourers some two years to dig out of marshland by hand. This was the Edwardian pleasure garden par excellence, with some 15 acres of Classical and natural landscapes constructed and planted.

Beloved Pompeii was not forgotten. The Pompeiian Wall was built here to show marble and stone antiquities arranged in intimate small bays. The Nymph and Satyr was part of this sylvan setting, which expressed the Classical concept of a locus amoenus or pleasant, shady place, an idyllic spot for sensual being. Astor was well aware of the explicitly erotic subject-matter of the infamous frescoes and sculptures in the House of the Vettii in Pompeii. It is a place with many an erect phallus, not least those of Priapus, god of fertility and abundance. In contrast, this more discreetly tumescent marble satyr appears the very model of decorum.

Susan Moore writes for the Financial Times among other publications.