A Rosy Hippo

Sometimes you see a thing online that just makes your day better. For me this morning it was a Twitter thread about a red marble hippo sculpture.

According to the writer, Gareth Harney, 

The hippopotamus was found in Rome, in the vicinity of the ancient Gardens of Sallust (Horti Sallustiani) — a large pleasure garden developed by Julius Caesar and his close friend, the historian Sallust, in the 1st century BC. 

It was a fountain, with water piped up one of the front legs and through the hippo's mouth.

"Our hippo," Harney writes, "may have been part of a monumental fountain marking the annexation of Egypt by Octavian in 30 BC..." He follows that with a quote from Pliny:

'The Nile produces the hippopotamus, a wild beast of great size. Its hide is impenetrable and it is used for making shields and helmets. This animal lays waste the standing corn, and decides beforehand what fields it shall ravage on the following day.'

The sculpture is in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen.

Which made me wonder why it's in Denmark and not in Rome. So I asked, and Harney responded that "It was purchased by the head of the Carlsberg brewery, Carl Jacobsen. His collection now makes up the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek."

From Jacobsen's Wikipedia page I learned that he was also connected to the Little Mermaid statue that tourists always go to see in Copenhagen. But I didn't find anything about how he came to acquire the hippo.

I guess he was a rich collector of antiquities, and he just bought it. There doesn't appear to be any easily accessible information about who sold it or why.