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Hippopotamus
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
This hippopotamus steps forward with its rear left leg lifted off the ground and its head arched upwards. The hippopotamus was a Nilotic animal associated with Egypt and the Nile River that was brought to Rome and put on display in the Colosseum as part of venationes , or wild beast hunts. The rise of “Egyptomania” in the Roman Empire surged under the emperor Hadrian (reigned AD 117–38). Extant Egyptian examples of hippopotamus figurines are less animated and made of materials such as stone or pottery rather than bronze, making the pose and materiality of this object distinctly Greco-Roman.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineHippopotamus, 332 BCE–395 CE. Italy, Rome, Greco-Roman Period. Bronze, solid cast; overall: 6.2 cm (2 7/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Leonard C. Hanna Jr., 1958.100
