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.
While the Sleeping Eros has undergone repairs and lost some of his original parts (his arrow and quiver are gone) he is in fact very finely made and beautifully conceived. Representing him asleep was an extraordinary conception for its time. Scholars assume that he more than likely was originally displayed in a private setting, perhaps in the courtyard of a villa in Greece or in a Roman territory.
It is said to have been found behind the old Rhodes Hospital on Papalouka Street, in a field. A large-scale marble copy also exists in Rome, in the Palazzo dei Conservatori.
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