Faun - Fauns in Art

Fauns in Art

The Barberini Faun (located in the Glyptothek in Munich, Germany) is a Hellenistic marble statue from about 200 BCE that was found in the Mausoleum of the Emperor Hadrian (the Castel Sant'Angelo) and installed at Palazzo Barberini by Cardinal Maffeo Barberini (later Pope Urban VIII). Gian Lorenzo Bernini restored and refinished the statue.

The House of the Faun in Pompei, dating from the 2nd century BCE, was so named because of the dancing faun statue which was the centerpiece of the large garden. The original now resides in the National Museum in Naples and a copy stands in its place.

The French symbolist Stéphane Mallarmé's famous masterpiece L'après-midi d'un faune (published in 1876) describes the sensual experiences of a faun who has just woken up from his afternoon sleep and discusses his encounters with several nymphs during the morning in a dreamlike monologue. The composer Claude Debussy based on it his symphonic poem Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894).