The Sculpture Museum

THE SCULPTURE MUSEUM



00







THE SCULPTURE MUSEUM TOMASSO BROTHERS FINE ART

TOMASSO BROTHERS FINE ART Bardon Hall, Weetwood Lane, Leeds, ls16 8hj tel. + 44 (0) 113 275 5545 Marquis House, 67 Jermyn Street, London, swiy 6ny tel. +44 (0) 20 7839 9394

www.tomassobrothers.co.uk info@tomassobrothers.co.uk Texts by Emanuela Tarizzo and Alexandra Popa, unless otherwise stated Photography by Doug Currie

© 2020 Tomasso Brothers Fine Art

In memory of Anna-Maria Russo (1930–2020)

CONTENTS

1

italian, 2nd half 18th century The Albani Faun

2

french, 18th century The Borghese Gladiator

3

CARLO ALBACINI (c. 1739– after 1807) Bust of Dionysus

4

vincenzo foggini (active c. 1728–55), attributed to Menelaus with the Body of Patroclus

5

BARTHÉLEMY PRIEUR (c. 1536–1611) Hermes (also known as The Belvedere Antinoüs)

6

roman, 17th century Bust of Venus

7

roman, 18th century Apollino and Callipygian Venus

8

the ciechanowiecki master, 17th century Dying Gaul

9

bartolomeo cavaceppi (c. 1716–1799), workshop of Portrait Bust of Young Commodus (161–192 ad)

10

giovanni francesco susini (1585– c. 1653) The Farnese Bull

11

roman, 17th century Portrait Head of Emperor Trajan (53–117 ad)

12

roman, 18th century Equestrian Monument of Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121–180 ad)

13

massimiliano soldani-benzi (1656–1740) Castor and Pollux

14

roman, c. 1830 Head of a Young Woman, known as Head of Isis

15

giovanni francesco susini (1585– c. 1653) The Wild Boar (Il Porcellino)

16

roman, 18th century Bust of Alexander the Great (356–323 bc)

17

FRANCESCO RIGHETTI (1749–1819) Bust of Emperor Vitellius (15–69 ad)

18

WILHELM HOPFGARTEN (1779–1869) Equestrian Monument of Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121–180 ad)

19

JOSEPH CHINARD (1756–1813) Faun and Kid

20

italian, 19th century Apollo and the Graces

00



italian, 2nd half 18th century

1

The Albani Faun After the Antique White marble 50 cm (19¾ in.) high

fig. 1 Roman, The Albani Faun, marble, 24 cm high Munich, Glyptothek

This carved marble bust takes as its inspiration the head of a mirthful laughing faun in the Munich Glyptothek (fig. 1), which is considered to be a Roman imperial period copy of a Hellenistic original. It was formerly in the collection of the influential Italian Albani family and rumoured to have been kept in the personal quarters of Cardinal Albani himself. The Faun left Rome for Paris as a result of the Treaty of Tolentino, which was signed in February 1797, and was part of the 100 works of art claimed by Napoleon’s armies after their invasion of the Papal States earlier that year. But, only twenty years later, after the defeat of Napoleon, the allies instructed the great Neoclassical sculptor Canova to oversee the restitution of these objects previously sent to Paris. However, the Albani family were either unwilling, or unable, to pay the transportation costs of returning all their goods, so the Faun was sold in Paris to Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria and ultimately made its way to Munich.

The present work derives from the second half of the eighteenth century, a period when there was a great demand for very high-quality versions of the most revered ancient statues that had survived from ancient times. For the most talented artists it was an opportunity to pitch their talents against those of Antiquity, and for collectors it was a chance to display their refined tastes and cultural erudition, while at the same time paying homage to what they considered to be the greatest sculptural achievements in Western art.

related literature F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900, New Haven and London, 1981, pp. 93–94



french, 18th century

2

The Borghese Gladiator After the Antique

Bronze, upon a Rouge Griotte marble base with gilt mouldings 63.5 cm (25 in.) high overall 51.5 cm (20¼ in.) high, the bronze 55 cm (21½ in.) wide overall

fig. 1 Roman, The Borghese Gladiator, signed by “Agasias of Ephesus, son of Dositheus”, c. 100 bc, marble, 199 cm high Paris, Musée du Louvre

The famed ancient marble prototype for this figure, known as the Borghese Gladiator, was discovered a short time before 11 June 1611 in Anzio, on the west coast of Italy (fig. 1). It was removed to the estate of the Cardinal Borghese by 1613 and on 27 September 1807 was purchased by Napoleon and sent to Paris in 1808.

The ancient model has been particularly admired for the veracious rendering of the Gladiator’s anatomy. It was thought to represent the most ideal masculine form of all the classical prototypes – exhibiting considerably stronger musculature than the Belvedere Antinoüs yet carrying less bulk than the Farnese Hercules. Within 20 years of its discovery, a bronze version of the work had been cast by Hubert Le Sueur for Charles I. Other famous casts of the Borghese Gladiator were made for the 4th Earl of Pembroke at Wilton (which was later moved to the iconic stairwell at Houghton Hall in Norfolk), the Duke of Bedford at Woburn Abbey and the Duke of Dorset at Knole, in Kent.

In the second half of the eighteenth century the production of bronze statuettes after the Antique reached the height of its popularity. In Rome, Righetti and Zoffoli’s small bronzes were generally purchased in sets and made a suitable size to sit comfortably atop a chimneypiece. A fascinating record of such a display is provided by Zoffany’s portrait of c. 1770 depicting Sir Lawrence Dundas and his grandson. Here a bronze Borghese Gladiator model by Zoffoli is accompanied by a group of bronze statuettes that include the Faun in Rosso Antico, the Capitoline Antinoüs, the Apollo Belvedere, the Furietti Centaurs and a Mercury by Giambologna (whose work was considered equal to that of the ancients). Similar sets survive at Alnwick in Northumberland and Saltram in Devon.

A French origin, or at least provenance, for the present bronze is supported by the fact of its accompanying Griotte marble base. This stone was mainly quarried in the Haute Pyrénées from the 1st century ad through to medieval times and was used extensively in the interior decoration of the Palace of Versailles.

related literature F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900, New Haven and London, 1981, pp. 221–24





CARLO ALBACINI (c. 1739– after 1807)

3

Rome, 2nd half 18th century

Bust of Dionysus After the Antique

Marble 70 cm (27½ in.) high overall 38.5 cm (15¼ in.) wide 42 cm (16½ in.) deep provenance Private collection, Europe

fig. 1 Roman, late Hadrianic Period (ad 117–38) Bust of Dionysus, marble, 54.5 cm Rome, Musei Capitolini, inv. no. 734



A pupil of Bartolomeo Cavaceppi (c. 1716–1799), Carlo Albacini was not only a highly successful and noted copyist of antiquities but also a sought-after restorer, best known for his restorations of the marbles in the prestigious Farnese collection. Recognized as one of the foremost sculptors patronized by the wealthy, distinguished Grand Tourists visiting the Eternal City in the late eighteenth century, Albacini was highly celebrated during his lifetime. Praises and superlatives abounded over his unrivalled talent as both a sculptor and restorer; indeed, it is known that numbers of the finest Greco-Roman sculptures that found their way into English collections passed through his hands. Albacini’s international, elite clientele included many important figures such as the Bourbon King Ferdinand of Naples and Thomas Jenkins, the powerful English banker and leading art dealer in Rome in the early 1770s.

Exquisitely carved, the present work is based on the Roman marble bust of Dionysus realised during the late Hadrianic period (ad 117–38) and now preserved in the Capitoline Museums, Rome (fig. 1). A Roman replica after a fourth-century bc original, the statue was part of a group of sculptures donated by Pope Pius V (1566–72) to the Palazzo dei Conservatori in 1566. In 1797, it was handed over to the French under the terms of the Treaty of Tolentino; however, following the defeat of Napoleon, it was returned to Rome in 1816 and re-installed in the Capitoline Museums. The bust shows Dionysus as a young man, with his head slightly bent forward and tilted to the right, fixed in a calm, solemn gaze. The delicate beardless face is characterized by softly modelled cheeks, a firm chin, straight nose and full lips. Particularly striking is the luxuriant hair, carved with a remarkable level of definition and naturalism. The head is crowned with a wreath of ivy leaves, while his locks are softly tied back with a ribbon that runs across his forehead, framing his most handsome and youthful countenance.

Balancing classical idealization with carefully observed naturalism, the present head of Dionysus – the ancient god of wine and revelry, known as Bacchus to ancient Romans – recalls his youthful appearance in the Homeric Hymn VII:



I will tell of Dionysus, the son of glorious Semele, how he appeared on a jutting headland by the short of the fruitless sea, seeming like a stripling in the first flush of manhood: his rich, dark hair was waving about him […]

(Hymn to Dionysus, p. 429).

We encounter the same youthful appearance in Seneca’s lyrical description: Let the people’s hymn sound with the praise of Bacchus. Bind your streaming locks with the nodding ivy, and in your soft hands grasp the Nysaean thyrsus! Bright glory of the sky, come hither to the prayers which thine own illustrious Thebes, O Bacchus, offers to thee with suppliant hands. Hither turn with favour thy virginal face; with thy star-bright countenance drive away the clouds, the grim threats of Erebus, and greedy fate. Thee it becomes to circle thy locks with flowers of the springtime, thee to cover thy head with Tyrian turban, or thy smooth brow to wreathe with the ivy’s clustering berries; now to fling loose thy lawless-streaming locks, again to bind them in a knot close-drawn […]

(Seneca, Oedipus, lines 401ff.). fig. 2 Roman, Bust of Capitoline Dionysus, illustrated in J.J. Winckelmann, Monumenti antichi inediti, Rome, 1767, plate 55

Over the centuries, the ‘virginal face’ and ‘star-bright countenance’ have puzzled scholars, who formerly identified the bust as that of a Bacchante, the sea goddess Leucothea, or Ariadne. The bust certainly fascinated the German art historian J.J. Winckelmann (1717–1768), who mentioned it in his writings on various occasions, and included an engraving of it in his Monumenti antichi inediti (fig. 2), where he identified it as Leucothea. In his monumental History of Ancient Art (Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums), Winckelmann finds in the bust a ‘joy [that] floats, like a soft breeze that scarcely stirs the leaves’, which he juxtaposes with the representation of suffering in the Laocoön as modes of expression ‘in the beautiful style’ that did not detract from ‘harmony and grandeur’ (Winckelmann 1881, p. 138).

related literature J.J. Winckelmann, Monumenti antichi inediti, Rome, 1767 J J. Winckelmann, The History of Ancient Art, vol. II, translated by G. Henry Lodge, London, 1881 Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, London and New York, 1914 E. Dodero, ‘Winckelmann e le Sculture di Palazzo Nuovo: Una Selezione’, in Il Tesoro di Antichità: Winckelmann e il Museo Capitolino nellal Roma del Settecento, eds. E. Dodero and P. Presicce, Rome, 2017, pp. 333-–59





vincenzo foggini (active c. 1728–55), attributed to

4

Florence, mid-18th century

Menelaus with the Body of Patroclus After the Antique

Bronze, with dark brown patina 51 cm (20 in.) high 32 cm (12½ in.) wide at base 27 cm (10½ in.) deep at base

fig. 1 Roman, Il Pasquino, erected next to Piazza Navona, Rome,

by Cardinal Carafa in 1501



Vincenzo Foggini was the eldest son of the celebrated Baroque sculptor Giovanni Battista Foggini, under whose guidance he was initiated to the art of sculpture.

Following in his father’s footsteps, Vincenzo became court sculptor to the Medici, taking over the foundry at Borgo Pinti which had been passed down from the time of Giambologna. During his career, Vincenzo executed many compositions drawn from drawings and prototypes by his father. His most celebrated work is the signed marble group of Samson and the Philistines of 1749, conserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

This bronze is a fine eighteenth-century cast of a composition, titled Il Pasquino, known primarily thanks to the ancient marble version – considered by some to be the prime one – discovered in Rome and installed by Cardinal Carafa next to Piazza Navona in 1501. This is one of three antique fragmentary versions of this model, discovered during the course of the sixteenth century, and certainly the most famous, albeit incomplete (fig. 1). The identification of the subject has proved since its discovery difficult to ascertain. During the sixteenth century it was first thought to represent Hercules defeating Geryon, and later on a wounded Alexander the Great being held by one of his soldiers, but neither of these two hypotheses reached wide consensus. The name ‘Il Pasquino’ derives from the fact that the marble acquired by Cardinal Carafa used to be located, until 1501, next to the house of a schoolmaster called Pasquino. For the Feast of St Mark on 25 April every year, it was traditional to attach erudite verses in Latin to this statue, as a gesture to promote the study of human letters. With the passage of time, the tradition changed and the theme of the poems attached to the sculpture gradually shifted from erudite to satirical; for this reason members of the Church, including Popes Leo X and Adrian VI, disapproved of St Mark’s feast day. Yet the Pasquino certainly had its admirers, such as the famous sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who once defined it as the finest piece of Antique sculpture in Rome (see Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 292).

Flaminio Vacca reported in 1594 that a second and more complete version of the group had been found in the estate of Antonio Velli, near Porta Portese in Rome, and in 1570 acquired by Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany. It was restored half a century later by Lodovico Salvetti, on the basis of a model by Pietro Tacca.

Once completed the group represented the figure of a warrior holding the dying





body of a younger man, with his arm falling lifelessly along one side. It was first placed on the Ponte Vecchio, Florence, and then installed under the Loggia dei Lanzi. Following the restoration of this second ancient marble, after 1620, two theories regarding the composition’s subject seemed to prevail: the first one suggested that the bronze represented Alexander and the dying Clitus, and the second one identified Ajax as the standing figure in the act of holding Patroclus. A third version, again reported by Vacca in 1594, was discovered in the Mausoleum of Augustus and also acquired by Cosimo I, who placed it in the Palazzo Pitti, as a pair to Hercules and Antaeus. This group, twice restored, presented some differences with the second version, and was generally considered as the least accomplished of the three antique ‘Pasquino’ statues.

Presently, the widely accepted theory on the subject of the ‘Pasquino’ is that first proposed by Ennio Quirino Visconti (1751–1818) who, after accurately studying the three versions together, concluded that the group portrayed Menelaus supporting Patroclus.

The present bronze in particular can be associated with the Pasquino cast by Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652–1725), securely attributed to the master through his models and piece-moulds of it, acquired by Marchese Carlo Ginori (1702– 1757) for his porcelain factory at Doccia and preserved there to this day. In this powerful composition the theme of pathos is predominant, as an emotionally and physically defeated Menelaus, who has barely the strength to stand, tries to hold the lifeless body of his friend Patroclus. The distress is visible in the carefully chiselled expression of both faces, and in the contrast between the dying Patroclus and Menelaus’s body that is in full tension, which present an impressive study of anatomy. Menelaus attempts to advance forwards, his gaze lost, seeking help, while his companion’s body seems to be slipping away from his arms. The texture of the bronze’s surface is masterfully rendered soft and naturalistic, conferring realism to the composition.

related literature F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900, New Haven and London, 1981, pp. 291–96



BARTHÉLEMY PRIEUR (c. 1536–1611)

5

France, c. 1600

Hermes (also known as The Belvedere Antinoüs) After the Antique Bronze 23 cm (9 in.) high 10 cm (4 in.) wide provenance Private collection, United Kingdom

A promising young sculptor with a prodigious talent, Barthélemy Prieur was drawn to the Italian peninsula to further his studies, where it is known that he was in Rome as early as the 1550s, presumably after having finished his initial training in France (Seelig-Teuwen, 2008, pp. 102–03). Prieur has been identified with the sculptor ‘Bartolomeo’ who was working alongside Ponce Jacquio (active 1527–72) on the decorations of the Ricci-Sacchetti palace in Via Giulia (Radcliffe 1993, pp.

275–76). Whilst his Roman activities remain scarcely documented, it has been suggested that in the 1550s he took part in the large stucco projects organized under the direction of Daniele da Volterra and Giulio Mazzoni; in the later works, his remarkable skill in the use of soft materials such as wax and clay for the models for his bronzes may indeed reflect his activity as a stuccoist (Seelig-Teuwen 2008, p. 102). After several years in Rome, he moved to Turin, capital of the flourishing duchy of Savoy, where his presence is attested in October 1564. There, he became court sculptor to Duke Emmanuel-Philibert of Savoy (1528–1580), specializing in monumental bronze projects (Seelig-Teuwen 1993, pp. 365–85). Drawing on his time spent in Rome with Jacquio, Prieur initiated and influenced the development of the small bronze statuette genre in France during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Warren 2010, p. 22).

Prieur had returned to Paris by the time of his marriage to Marguerite Dalencourt on 27 September 1571 and was recorded to have made some small-scale bronzes by 1583 (Grodecki 1986, pp. 129–33). When King Henri IV of France (1553– 1610) came to the throne in 1589, he clearly took a liking to Prieur’s small bronze statuettes. Realising the enormous monarchical propaganda potential that these works would have had, he appointed Prieur to the coveted post of sculpteur du roi five years later. In this capacity, he is known to have made reliefs for the Petite Galerie of the Louvre around 1594, alongside restoring certain antique statues for the King.

The scale, sculpting, facture and colour of the present bronze all point towards the full authorship of Barthélemy Prieur. What is interesting to note is the idiosyncratic manner in which Prieur models the facial features, especially the eyes, so as to try and represent ancient ideals and proportions; yet, inevitably, in





fig. 1 Roman, 2nd century ad Hermes, long known as the Belvedere Antinoüs, marble Vatican, Museo Pio Clementino

the finished image, it seems that the Renaissance always forces itself into the final gaze. Another pointer to the sculptor is in the beautiful modelling and almost feminine-like rendering of the elongated fingers and nails, which recall so many of Prieur’s other small-scale bronzes.

This beautifully modelled bronze statuette is a fine version of the famous antique marble Hermes in the Museo Pio Clementino (fig. 1). The idealized youth was identified for a long time as Antinoüs, the favourite of Emperor Hadrian.

By April 1545, the Hermes was certainly in the Cortile Belvedere; however, there are two main theories regarding the precise location of its initial discovery.

Aldrovandi thought that it had been found on the Esquiline Hill near San Martino ai Monti, while Mercati disagreed, insisting that it had come from a garden near the Castel Sant’Angelo (Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 141). Upon its discovery, it was immediately acquired by Pope Paul III (1468–1549) and stood resplendent in the great Belvedere courtyard of the Vatican until 1797, when it was handed over to the French under the terms of the Treaty of Tolentino. However, the removal of the sculpture to the Louvre was to be but a brief sojourn, for, not long after the statue



fig. 2 Charles Le Brun, Portrait of the Sculptor Nicolas Le Brun, c. 1635, oil on canvas Salzburg, Residenzgalerie

had been triumphantly processed through the streets of Paris in July 1798, it was returned to Rome, following the defeat of Napoleon, in January 1816 (Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 142).

The elegant antique marble Hermes has been regarded with the utmost reverence ever since it was discovered in the mid sixteenth century. This is demonstrated by the trend for artists and connoisseurs to have themselves depicted in the vicinity of the model. For example, Nicolas de Largillière’s portraits of both Charles Le Brun (Musée du Louvre, inv. no. 5661) and Nicolas Coustou (Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, inv. no. 80.1) feature a version of the model. Similarly, in Charles Le Brun’s portrait of c. 1635 (fig. 2, Residenzgalerie, Salzburg, inv. no. 254), his father, the sculptor Nicolas Le Brun, is presented with a plaster cast of it. The reasons for this appear to have been as much pedagogic as they were aesthetic and socio-cultural, for Bernini had made the remarkable statement to the Paris Academy in 1666 that ‘when I was in difficulties with my first statue, I turned to the Antinous (Hermes) as to the oracle’ (Wittkower [1958] 1999, p. 21).



related literature R. Wittkower, ‘Gianlorenzo Bernini 1598–1680’, in Art and Architecture in Italy 1600–1750, II, ‘The High Baroque 1625–1675’ [1958], New Haven, 1999 R. Seelig-Teuwen, Barthélemy Prieur (1536–1611), Phd diss., Munich, 1973 F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900, New Haven and London, 1981 C. Grodecki, ‘Inventaire après decès de Marguerite Dalencourt, femme de Barthélemy Prieur, 8th November 1583’, in Documents du Minutier Central des Notaires de Paris: histoire de l’art aux XVIe siècle (1540–1600), vol. II, Paris, 1986, pp. 129–33 A. Radcliffe, ‘Ponce et Pilon’, in Germain Pilon et les sculpteurs français de la Renaissance. Actes du colloque organisé au musée du Louvre les 26 et 27 octobre 1990, ed. Geneviève Bresc-Bautier, Paris, 1993, pp. 275–96 R. Seelig-Teuwen, ‘Barthélemy Prieur, contemporain de Germain Pilon’, in Germain Pilon … 1993, pp. 282–83, 365–85 R. Seelig-Teuwen, ‘Barthélemy Prieur’, in Cast in Bronze: French Sculpture from Renaissance to Revolution, exh. cat., Paris: Musée du Louvre / New York: Metropolitan Museum / Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2008–09, pp. 102–03 J. Warren, ‘Florence, Paris, Rome: Cultural Crossing Points’, in Beauty & Power: Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Peter Marino Collection, exh. cat., Wallace Collection, London, 2010





roman, 17th century

6

Bust of Venus After the Antique White marble and alabaster on a Bigio Morato socle 70 cm (27½ in.) high 48 cm (18⅜ in.) wide

Exquisitely carved, the present bust is based on ancient Hellenistic and Roman derivations of the Greek sculptor Praxiteles’ fourth-century bc masterpiece, the Aphrodite of Knidos. In this composition, Praxiteles created a female canon of proportions that influenced generations of artists to come. The statue originally stood in the centre of the goddess’s temple at Knidos, in Asia Minor; while the original is now lost, versions of it have survived, including from antiquity.

Among the many Venus variants that derive from Praxiteles’ masterpiece, a select few have arguably rivalled their prototype’s fame. These are the Colonna Venus, conserved in the Museo Pio Clementino in the Vatican, the Medici Venus in the Uffizi, and the Capitoline Venus in the Capitoline Museums. All three date back to ancient Rome, and, while they certainly display many differences, all share the same natural, animated stance characterized by a contrapposto pose. In these statues, the head is always turned to the left, yet the nature of this turn can vary, with the face being lowered or raised. As in the present bust, the hair is often gathered in a bun at the back of the head, tied by a band which parts the goddess’s curls.

A distinctively individual interpretation of the Praxitelean Aphrodite, the present bust is based most closely on the Medici Venus (fig. 1); it emulates this version in its treatment of the elaborate coiffure and expression, yet adds the presence of a softly folded peplum over the goddess’s shoulders, carved in warmly veined alabaster. The Medici Venus was recorded in the Villa Medici in Rome in 1638, and by 1688 it was installed in the Tribuna of the Uffizi. Revered as the most beautiful Venus to have survived from Antiquity, the Medici Venus was widely copied, as models after renowned antiquities represented both homages to the masterpieces of the past and statements of their owners’ refined taste and cultural aspirations. related literature

fig. 1 Roman, 1st century bc, Venus de’ Medici, marble, 153 cm high Florence, Uffizi



F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900, New Haven and London, 1981, pp. 325–38 C. Mitchell Havelock, The Aphrodite of Knidos and Her Successors: A Historical Review of the Female Nude in Greek Art, Ann Arbor, 1955, pp. 1–39



roman, 18th century

7

Apollino and Callipygian Venus After the Antique Bronze Each 63 cm (24¾ in.) high

fig. 1 Roman, 1st century ad, Apollino, marble, 141 cm high Florence, Uffizi



In the eighteenth century, wealthy Grand Tourists who travelled to Italy in search of culture and adventure were keen to purchase accurate bronze models of the famous antique statues they encountered. In 1794, the influential designer Charles Heathcote Tatham wrote to recommend the locally made Roman bronzes after the Antique to Henry Holland thus: “There is clearly an advantage in having bronzes copied immediately from the rarest antique statues, which the workman has before him, making them much more interesting and valuable” (Honour 1961, p. 198).

The earliest record of the ancient Roman model for the present bronze Apollino dates to 1704, when it was at the Villa Medici in Rome (fig. 1). It achieved immediate fame and later versions of it were often paired with the Venus de Medici, as in Thomas Hope’s house Deepdene, in Surrey, England. Since 1771, the Roman marble original has been displayed in the illustrious Tribuna of the Uffizi in Florence, where the Medici exhibited their most prized artistic treasures. It was probably an adaption of a work by the famed Greek sculptor Praxiteles, and the subject has long been believed to represent the adolescent Apollo. By the turn of the nineteenth century, the Apollino had been selected by Baron DominiqueVivant Denon, along with the Farnese Hercules and the Borghese Gladiator, as works considered a high priority to acquire for the Musée Napoleon’s collection.

As a result, the Apollino was removed to Palermo by the Italians in September 1800, to prevent its export by the French troops.

The present pair to the Apollino – a female figure coyly presenting herself to the onlooker – is a reduced size version a famous ancient marble statue, now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, known as the Callipygian Venus, or ‘Venus of the beautiful buttocks’ (fig. 2). The subject derives from a legend recounted by the third-century ad writer Athenaeus and subsequently retold by Vincenzo Cartari in his guide to ancient mythology (1556). The tale centres on a dispute between two daughters of a peasant concerning which one had the most shapely buttocks. To settle this argument, they decided to select a young man on the highway, who was unknown to both of them, and to invite him to judge. His choice of one sister was his reward, and his brother, hearing of the contest, chose the other girl to be his bride. The double marriage that ensued was so important to the girls’ futures that they dedicated a temple to Venus Callipygos at Syracuse.

The life-size ancient original has been known by a number of names since its discovery – ‘La Bergère Greque’, ‘Venus aux belles fesses’, ‘Venus drying herself ’, ‘Venus leaving the Bath’ and ‘La Belle Victorieuse’. It is possible that the work was

discovered as early as 1556, but it was definitely recorded in the Palazzo Farnese in 1594. In 1786 it was decided that the statue be moved to Naples, but it was first sent to Carlo Albacini for restoration. The marble arrived at the Capodimonte in February 1792 and was later transferred to the Museo degli Studi (now Museo Nazionale) before May 1802. Famous copies include the marble which Gustavus III of Sweden’s commissioned from Tobias Sergel, intended as a pair to an earlier version of the Apollino that he already possessed, to be displayed in the ‘Hall of Mirrors’ in Stockholm’s Royal Palace. There is also a bronze statuette in the Ashmolean Museum, attributed to the Flemish sculptor Hans Mont, which was possibly made before 1571, which could make it the earliest known reproduction of this ancient model. related literature A. Wilton and I. Bignamini (eds.), ‘Memories of Italy’, Grand Tour: The Lure of Italy in the Eighteenth Century, London, 1996, p. 280 C. Teolato, ‘Roman bronzes at the court of Gustavus III of Sweden: Zoffoli, Valadier and Righetti’, The Burlington Magazine, CLIII, November 2011, pp. 727–33 F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900, New Haven and London, 1981, pp. 146–48, 316–18 G.A. Mansuelli, Galleria Degli Uffizi: Le Sculture, Parte I, Rome 1958 H. Honour, ‘Bronze Statuettes by Giacomo and Giovanni Zoffoli’, Connoisseur, November 1961, pp. 198–205 fig. 2 Roman, 1st–2nd century ad, Callipygian Venus, marble, 160 cm high Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples



00





00





00



THE CIECHANOWIECKI MASTER, 17th century

8

Dying Gaul After the Antique Gilt bronze 10 cm (4 in.) high 18 cm (7 in.) wide 9 cm (3½ in.) deep provenance Private collection, France

With its meticulous attention to detail, and the finely worked surface, the present bronze displays strong formal similarities with an extensive group of bronzes, mostly gilded, attributed to the anonymous sculptor referred to as the ‘Ciechanowiecki Master’, after Count Andrew Ciechanowiecki (1924– 2015). Ciechanowiecki, who was the first to identify this artist’s distinctive style, associated the master with the Augsburg goldsmith and sculptor David Schwestermüller (1596–1678), who certainly may have seen such small-scale sculptures during his apprenticeship in Italy. Over the years, the many attempts that have been made to identify the master range broadly, from Adriaen de Vries, Camelio and Franco-Flemish, third quarter of the seventeenth century, to the most recent identification of the master as an artist active in late sixteenth-century Rome (Leither-Jasper and Wengraf 2004, p. 250).

fig. 1 Roman, 1st–2nd century ad, Dying Gaul, marble Rome, Musei Capitolini, inv. no. MC0747



This finely cast gilt bronze is closely based on the antique marble Dying Gaul, in the collection of the Capitoline Museums, Rome (fig. 1). The ancient Roman statue was first recorded in the 1623 inventory of the Ludovisi collection in Rome, in which it was described as a dying gladiator; in 1633 the sculpture was in the Palazzo Grande on the Ludovisi estate on the Pincio (Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 224).

Apart from a short period of time, when it was seized by Don Livio Odescalchi in payment of a debt, the Dying Gaul remained with the Ludovisi family until some time before 1737. It was then acquired by Pope Clement XII (1652–1740) for the Capitoline Museums, where it remained until 1797. It was handed over to the French under the terms of the Treaty of Tolentino; following the defeat of Napoleon, it was returned to Rome in 1816 and re-installed in the Capitoline Museums.

A touching celebration of the potential of the human spirit, the Dying Gaul portrays a fallen warrior in his final moments, before he dies from the wound on his chest. For a long time, the sculpture was thought to represent a gladiator at the point of death. Furthermore, the presence of the broken horn led the German art historian J.J. Winckelmann to reconsider the true subject of the statue, proposing that it represented instead a Greek herald (Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 226). It was E.Q. Visconti (1751–1818) who sensibly argued that the ethnic qualities of the figure suggested he was a barbarian warrior, either a Gaul or a German, who had heroically died on the battlefield (Haskell and Penny 1981, p.

226). By mid nineteenth century, scholars agreed that it depicted a Gallic warrior; his moustache, the matted, thick locks of hair, and the torque around his neck indicated that he belonged to one of the Celtic tribes which the Greeks and Romans considered barbarians. Since the late nineteenth century, the statue has been considered to be a copy of a Greek bronze original created in the first half of the third century bc to commemorate the victories of Attalus I (269–197 bc), King of Pergamon, over the Gauls (Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 227).

Ever since its discovery, the sculpture enjoyed great popularity among artists and collectors as its fame spread quickly, thanks to the etching by François Perrier (1590–1650), published in Rome in 1638. Plaster casts were made for King Philip IV of Spain (1605–1665) and the French Academy in Rome, followed by a marble copy carved by Michel Monnier for Louis XIV (1638–1715). Various large-scale copies were also realised in England – Peter Scheemakers carved one in stone for the garden at Rousham in Oxfordshire, Simon Vierpyl also carved one in marble for Lord Pembroke’s Wilton estate in Wiltshire, whilst Luigi Valadier cast it in bronze for the great hall of Duke of Northumberland’s mansion of Syon. Numerous other casts in bronze were realised by Gianfrancesco Susini (1585–1653) in the seventeenth century, followed by Giovanni Zoffoli (c. 1745–1805) in the eighteenth





fig. 2 Giovanni Paolo Panini, Ancient Rome, 1757, oil on canvas New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gwynne Andrews Fund, 1952



century. Given greatest prominence in Giovanni Paolo Panini’s gallery of ancient art (fig. 2), the Dying Gaul inspired numerous works, such as Diego Velàzquez’s Mercury and Argus (Museo del Prado, Madrid, inv. no. P001175) and Jean Louis David’s Male Nude Study, called Patroclus (Musée Thomas Henry, Cherbourg).

Copying the sculpture not only became de rigueur for art students, but the Dying Gaul also represented an unmissable stop on the Grand Tour of the educated European elite. Lord Byron, who toured Italy between 1816 and 1823, beautifully immortalized it in his poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage: I see before me the Gladiator lie: He leans upon his hand – his manly brow Consents to death, but conquers agony, And his droop’d head sinks gradually low – And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now The arena swims around him – he is gone, Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail’d the wretch who won.

related literature F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900, New Haven and London, 1981, pp. 224–27 M. Leither-Jasper and P. Wengraf, European Bronzes from the Quentin Collection, exh. cat., The Frick Collection, New York, 2004



bartolomeo cavaceppi (c. 1716–1799), workshop of

9

Rome, 2nd half 18th century

Portrait Bust of Young Commodus (161–192 ad) After the Antique White marble 72 cm (28¼ in.) high

fig. 1 Roman, 175–77 ad, Young Commodus, marble, 74 cm high Rome, Musei Capitolini

Bartolomeo Cavaceppi was celebrated in his own lifetime as a great artist, restorer and art dealer. He was a favoured protégé of Cardinal Albani and a close friend of Winckelmann and his impact on the path of Western art should not be underestimated. He was a leading figure in a close society of Roman cultural elites whose insatiable antiquarian spirit laid the foundations for the great Neoclassical revival in eighteenth-century Europe.

Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus – usually known as Commodus, was the son of Marcus Aurelius and the last member of the Antonine dynasty of Roman Emperors. He assumed the imperial throne at the age of eighteen on the death of his father and re-founded Rome as ‘Colonia Commodiana’, even having the months re-named after his various titles. However, he was eventually overturned in a coup organized by members of the Praetorian Guard, the imperial household and his concubine.

This work is after the famed portrait of young Commodus in Rome’s Capitoline Museums (fig. 1). Ancient portraits of the philosopher-Emperor Marcus Aurelius (r. 161–80 ad) and his son Commodus (r. 177–92 ad) achieved new heights of psychological expression that often reflected changes in their physical and mental condition, their personality and character. This style of portraiture reached its zenith in the reign of the Severan Emperor Caracalla (r. 211–17 ad). The bust of young Commodus was popular among Grand Tourists and a number ordered newly carved versions of it from the finest Neoclassical sculptors working in Rome during the second half of the eighteenth century. His wavy, tightly curled locks of hair and the sweeping folds of his toga gave ambitious Neoclassical sculptors the opportunity to display their skill and compare themselves not only to the ancients but also to their contemporaries and rivals.

related literature C. Picon, Bartolomeo Cavaceppi: Eighteenth- century restorations of ancient marble sculpture from English private collections, exh. cat., The Clarendon Gallery, London, 1983 E. La Rocca and C. Parisi Presicce, eds., Musei Capitolini: Le Sculture del Palazzo Nuovo, Rome, 2010, pp. 452–45





giovanni francesco susini (1585– c. 1653)

10

Florence, 1st half 17th century

The Farnese Bull After the Antique

Bronze, dark olive patina with traces of translucent lacquer 46.5 cm (18¼ in.) high 38 cm (15 in.) wide 38 cm (15 in.) deep provenance Private collection, United Kingdom

fig. 1 Roman, 2nd–3rd century ad, The Farnese Bull, marble, 370 cm high Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale



Born in Florence towards the end of the sixteenth century, Giovanni Francesco, or Gianfrancesco, Susini learned the art of bronze casting from his uncle Antonio, one of the most talented disciples of the undisputed master bronzier of the period, the great Giambologna (1529–1608). Indeed, the biographer Filippo Baldinucci (1624–1697) writes in his Notizie on Antonio Susini (ed. Ranalli, 1846, IV, p. 110) that the sculptor was greatly esteemed by Giambologna, who sent him to Rome to make copies of the finest statues in that city. Among these was the monumental marble group referred to as the Farnese Bull, which had been excavated in 1545 in the Baths of Caracalla and had entered the prestigious Farnese collection the following year, to be restored by Gian Battista Bianchi in 1579 (fig. 1). Antonio Susini made several bronze statuettes of this ancient marble, though interestingly Baldinucci describes the model at some length as being one of the works of his nephew Gianfrancesco, whom the writer knew personally (ed. Ranalli, 1846, IV, p. 118).

This spectacular bronze group is expertly cast (in several components invisibly joined together) and chased. The nude parts of the human bodies and the hides of the little animals are well polished, while the whole surface of the mound on which the action takes place is treated with a matt punch in neat lines that carefully follow and emphasize its contours, while one or two areas are left smooth, by way of contrast.

The group is a massive, hollow cast that conforms inside to the shape of the mound. To this some figures were attached by shaping the ends of their casting sprues into tangs, which were then hammered through holes in the mound, for example beneath the rear legs of the dog, visible from below; or by tapping on a screw thread, to which a nut may be applied, once it has passed down through a hole bored in the mound – as, for example, in the complete figure of the attendant at the rear right corner.

Beneath the collapsed body of Dirce awaiting her punishment, thick iron-wire armatures project down around some refractory material from the core. Some rectangular insertions of metal (for example, when seen from below, one more or less in the centre and others in lower left and upper right corners) are not fixings





for figures above, but patches for holes. These may have been rectangular in the first instance, having been formed in the wax casting model by iron rods passing through by way of armatures to centre and secure the whole heavy casting when invested with its core material and plaster cope.

The lower edges of the mound are pleasingly uneven and vary in thickness. At the rear right corner an extra area of thickness is caused by a repair made with a second run of metal. The model is probably taken from the same set of cleverly designed piece moulds that were made by Antonio Susini when he executed the several casts that he signed and dated 1613. The design here is virtually identical, save for a few insignificant details.

Another variation, perhaps introduced to simplify the laborious process of manually chasing every square centimetre of the surface, is the fact that the rope with which the men are restraining the bull, by winding it round its horns, is here rendered by a continuous length of spiral wire, whereas in the cast signed by Antonio the length bound round and strung between the horns is cast on to the curly crown of hair on the bull’s head. The bony ridge of the beast’s eyebrows and the sharp breaks in the folds of the cloaks slung round the necks of Amphion and Zethus, as well as the dress of the female in attendance, have been smoothed over, again for ease of production. This sort of minor alteration indicates a later date within the span of activity of the firm of the Susini, and points to the activity of Gianfrancesco. Admittedly, the smoother, rounder feel of the piece may also be a reflection of a change of taste in the early Baroque period, away from the stylized, staccato, visual effect of Giambologna’s and – more pronouncedly – Antonio Susini’s idiosyncratic technical handling.

Antonio Susini’s cast in the Galleria Borghese (no. CCXLIX) is inscribed: ANT. II SVSINII FLOR.I OPVS/A.D.MDCXIII (on the base, between the feet of the man with a rope) and it was noted in the Borghese collection as early as 1625 by Crulli (Grandezze di Roma, 1625, p. 50v). Subsequent references in the eighteenth century mention that the bronze was placed on a pedestal of ebony ornamented with hard stones, which has since been lost. This and the virtually identical cast in the Hermitage, St Petersburg (inv. no. 1210) are scrupulously careful reductions of the monumental marble group and the reliefs round its base; the hypercritical and perfectionist German critic Winckelmann (Monumenti antichi, [1767] 1830, V, p. 23) noted on the Borghese statuette only a few discrepancies from the original.

Every tiny detail, each fingernail, for instance, is meticulously executed, while extraordinary variety is achieved in the drapery patterns and rendering of texture.

The small work is a tour de force technically and offers a vocabulary of Susini’s bronze finishing methods, which were highly praised by his contemporaries.



Examples of Gianfrancesco Susini’s variant versions mentioned by Baldinucci are thought to be those in the Liechtenstein Collection (recorded in an inventory of 1658) and the Grünes Gewölbe, Dresden (bought by Le Plat in Paris in 1715: see Holzhausen and Kersting 1933).

The rather obscure story behind this sculpture is recounted in detail by Lemprière in his famous Classical Dictionary (1788): ‘Dirce was a woman whom Lycus king of Thebes married after he had divorced Antiope. When Antiope became pregnant by Jupiter, Dirce suspected her husband of infidelity to her bed, and imprisoned Antiope, whom she tormented with the greatest cruelty. Antiope escaped from her confinement, and brought forth Amphion and Zethus on mount Cithæron. When these children were informed of the cruelties to which their mother had been exposed, they besieged Thebes, put Lycus to death, and tied the cruel Dirce to the tail of a wild bull, which dragged her over rocks and precipices, and exposed her to the most poignant pains, till the gods, pitying her fate, changed her into a fountain, in the neighbourhood of Thebes.’ dr charles avery

related literature W. Holzhausen and E. Kersting, Prachtgefäße, Geschmeide ... Darin: Verzeichnis der Dresdner Goldschmiede, Tübingen, 1933 I. Faldi, Galleria Borghese. Le sculture dal secolo XVI al XIX, Rome, 1954, no. 59 C. Avery and A. Radcliffe, Giambologna, Sculptor to the Medici, exh. cat., Arts Council of Great Britain, London, 1978, nos. 180–81





roman, 17th century

11

Portrait Head of Emperor Trajan (53–117 ad) After the Antique Porphyry 38 cm (15 in.) high

fig. 1 Rome, 2nd century ad, Bust of Trajan, white marble Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. MA 1250

This finely carved porphyry head is a portrait of Emperor Trajan, the just ruler and highly successful conqueror under whom the Roman Empire famously reached its greatest level of territorial expansion. He governed from 98 ad until his death in 117 ad and was celebrated by the Senate as “Optimus Princeps”, ‘the best ruler’.

Carved in Rome during the seventeenth century, this head is closely related to a specific representation of the Emperor which our artist could have accurately studied from life, in the form of a second-century ad white marble portrait of Trajan now in the Louvre, Paris (fig. 1) and formerly in the renowned collection of antiquities of the Albani family in Rome. The same collection held a second version of this composition, now in the Musei Capitolini, Rome (inv. no. 438).

For influential aristocratic families such as the Albani, the display of vestiges of ancient Rome’s power, like the effigy of an emperor, was intended to draw a parallel, and signal a continuation, between the great Roman patricians of the past and those of the present. This notion is distinctively embodied in the Villa Borghese, the residence of another prominent Roman family, where the aptly named Sala degli Imperatori houses the porphyry and alabaster busts of the Twelve Caesars ( Julius Caesar and Rome’s first eleven emperors). These were executed in the seventeenth century and, like the present head, would have functioned both as reminders of the city’s illustrious past and as celebrations of their present Caesars.

The present portrait’s iconography, depicting the young Emperor as serene and yet with all the gravitas commanded by his role, was created at the beginning of his reign, a phase that was welcomed as the end of a period of political insecurity and strife for the Empire. Indeed, instead of inheriting the Empire, Trajan had been chosen by Emperor Nerva as his successor for the valour he had displayed as an army officer, and his rule was characterized by stability and prosperity throughout the Roman provinces.

related literature K. de Kersauson, Catalogue des portraits romains, II, Paris, 1996, no. 25, p. 70





00





roman, 18th century

12

Equestrian Monument of Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121–180 ad) After the Antique Statuary marble 102 cm (40 in.) high 38 cm (15 in.) wide 80 cm (31½ in.) deep inscribed I POPOLI SARANNO FELICI QVANDO AVRANNO DEI FILOSOFI PER RE O CHE I LORO RE SARANNO DEI FILOSOFI provenance Sandoz family collection Private collection, Rome

The life-size portrait of Marcus Aurelius (121–180 ad) on horseback that our marble draws upon is thought to have been cast between c. 161 and 180 ad, during the Emperor’s reign or immediately after his death (Musei Capitolini, Rome; fig. 1). It is one of the most extraordinary and treasured sculptures to have survived from antiquity and has for centuries been considered as the highpoint of equestrian portraiture. A potent visual embodiment of power, it soon came to represent the model for rulers who wished to present themselves as heirs to imperial Rome.

Already in the eighth century, the great Charlemagne (742–814) had an equestrian statue from Ravenna transferred to the heart of his empire in Aachen, where he sought to emulate the layout of Rome’s Campus Lateranensis, the square outside today’s Lateran Basilica in which the Marcus Aurelius then stood. In 1538, the monument was moved to the Capitol – the seat of Rome’s civic government – and the celebrated Michelangelo was commissioned to design its base, which supports the statue to this day. Interestingly, the bronze model of the Capitoline Marcus Aurelius made in 1465 by the illustrious Florentine master Filarete (dedicated to Piero de’ Medici) is considered to be the first Renaissance bronze after the Antique (now Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden).

Owing to its unique history, nature and, arguably, clear association to notions of political power and splendour, the Capitoline Marcus Aurelius enjoyed uninterrupted fame throughout the centuries. For example, “a very similar story was repeated of Michelangelo, of Pietro da Cortona, of Bernini and of Carlo Maratta, each of whom was supposed to have addressed the statue with the words ‘Move on, then; don’t you know that you are alive?’” (Haskell and Penny 1981, p.

254). In the eighteenth century, at the highpoint of Neoclassicism, models after antique sculptures ranked amongst a collector’s most prized possessions, and the Marcus Aurelius was no exception.







fig. 1 Roman, Emperor Marcus Aurelius, c. 161–180 ad, bronze, 424 cm high Rome, Musei Capitolini, inv. no. MC3247

The present equestrian monument of Emperor Marcus Aurelius is exceptional amongst the known models after the Roman bronze for its size, material and for the extraordinary quality of its finish. A characteristic that appears unique to it is the inscription on the base, in Italian, which reads ‘The people will be happy when they will have philosophers as kings or when their kings will be philosophers’. A reference to the Greek philosopher Plato’s concept of the ‘philosopher-king’ as the most desirable form of government (Republic, Book VI), it came to be associated with Marcus Aurelius on account of his having been both an emperor and a philosopher.

Carved in statuary marble, this model of the Capitoline monument beautifully and attentively captures every anatomical and decorative detail of the prototype, from the torsion of the horse’s neck and the veins on its muzzle to the solemn expression in the Emperor’s face and the elaborate design of his saddle. This suggests our artist was able to observe the bronze first-hand in Rome, fully taking in its sense of grandeur and movement. An accomplished sculptor, he rendered skilfully the folds in the Emperor’s robes, the deeply carved curls in his hair and beard, and the potent tension in the horse’s stride. Perfectly aware of the different precautions required for sculpting in marble as opposed to casting in bronze, he inserted in the composition the armour of a defeated enemy – taken from images of Roman triumphs – which bears the weight of the composition in the centre, and added small supports to secure the horse’s legs and tail.

The crisp, confident quality of the modelling and the observant approach to the prototype discernible in our sculpture indicate that it was carved in a Roman workshop in the second half of the eighteenth century. Amongst the finest and most important of these was that of Carlo Albacini (1739– after 1807), with whose style the present Marcus Aurelius displays close parallels. A pupil of Bartolomeo Cavaceppi, Albacini specialized in copies after the Antique of the highest refinement, destined for the wealthiest and most sophisticated Grand Tour travellers, but also in restoring antiquities, such as those in the prestigious Farnese collection. In 1783 he was accepted as an “accademico di merito” in the Accademia di San Luca, Rome’s prestigious academy of arts. The Empress of Russia, Catherine II, is portrayed in a full-length statue by Albacini, whose works were in high demand at her court. She also commissioned from him the funerary monument to the great painter Anton Rafael Mengs (1780) in the church of Santi Michele e Magno in Rome. Greatly admired within the milieu of English antiquarians and collectors in Rome, Albacini often collaborated with the art dealer Thomas Jenkins, and worked for prominent patrons such as Charles Townley, Henry Blundell and the Marquess of Lansdowne.



Albacini’s style centres on close observation of antique originals, and fully embodies the rigorously antiquarian aesthetic of Neoclassicism, an approach certainly informed by his activity as a restorer of ancient statues. In this field, conversely to his master Cavaceppi, Albacini showed a propensity to integrating antiquities to the highest finish, restoring them to what he deemed was their original splendour. The present artist, whose Marcus Aurelius does full justice to the ancient bronze and who shows extensive knowledge of ancient statuary and iconography, no doubt belonged to Albacini’s circle in Rome.

An interesting point of reference for our Marcus Aurelius is a marble model of the same subject, of comparable dimensions, now in Slane Castle, County Meath, Ireland. Virtually the only other large-scale Marcus Aurelius in marble known today, it offers an indication of the type of setting such sculptures would have been intended for, although the Italian inscription on our base suggests it was intended for the grand residence of an Italian patron, possibly a Roman patrician.

related literature F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900, New Haven and London, 1981, pp. 252–55 S. Howard, ‘Ancient Busts and the Cavaceppi and Albacini casts’, Journal of the History of Collections, III, no. 2, January 1991, pp. 199–217 V. Coltman, Classical Sculpture and the Culture of Collecting in Britain since 1760, Oxford, 2009, pp. 85–87





MASSIMILIANO SOLDANI-BENZI (1656–1740)

13

Florence, 1st quarter 18th century

Castor and Pollux After the Antique Bronze 50 cm (19¾ in.) high 32 cm (12½ in.) wide 18 cm (7 in.) deep provenance Private collection, United States of America

Born to an aristocratic cavalry captain from Tuscany, Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi became one of the finest bronze casters in late seventeenth- and early eighteenthcentury Europe and, along with his contemporary Giovanni Battista Foggini, is considered the most significant proponent of the Florentine late Baroque style in sculpture. He first trained in Florence under the painter Volterrano, who encouraged him to attend the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, and subsequently enrolled at the Medicean Academy in Rome in 1678. There he studied under the medallist Pietro Travani, the painter and sculptor Ciro Ferri, who had been a pupil of Pietro da Cortona, and the sculptor Ercole Ferrata, who had trained under both Alessandro Algardi and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Soldani-Benzi excelled in the field of medal- and coin-making and soon received commissions from Pope Innocent XI, Queen Christina of Sweden and prominent members of the papal court. Whilst perfecting his art in Paris, Soldani-Benzi attracted the attention of King Louis XIV and his entourage, but, at the behest of Cosimo III de’ Medici, he returned to Florence in 1682 and was named Director of the Grand-Ducal Mint.

Two years later he was appointed Professor at the Accademia del Disegno where he had once studied. His workshop was located in the heart of Florence, on the ground floor of the Galleria degli Uffizi. In his capacity as Director of the Mint, he oversaw the process of striking coins, but more importantly concentrated on the casting of large bronze medals, in which his skill gained him substantial recognition. Towards the end of the 1690s, Soldani-Benzi also began to dedicate himself to the production of reduced-scale bronzes, such as the present work.

Statuettes after the ancient and modern masters represent an important part of his production, one that he cultivated steadily from the turn of the eighteenth century until his death in 1740, and upon which his international renown rests to this day. By the end of his career, his patrons had included, in addition to those already mentioned, Gran Principe Ferdinando de’ Medici, Prince Johann Adam of Liechtenstein, the Elector Palatine, the Duke of Marlborough and the Earl of Burlington. Especially during the artist’s maturity, the British ‘milordi’ formed a substantial part of Soldani-Benzi’s patrons, as confirmed by the discovery of four





fig. 1 Roman, 1st century bc, Castor and Pollux, marble Madrid, Museo del Prado, inv. no. E000028

hundred folios of correspondence between him and the intermediary Giovanni Giacomo Zamboni in London. Unfortunately, Zamboni’s replies have been lost at the Florentine end, though a few of his draft letters from the 1720s do survive in the Bodleian Library. The correspondence begins on 15 October 1716, just after the visit to Florence of the twenty-year-old Earl of Burlington, and covers the latter half of Soldani’s career.

The present composition is drawn from an ancient Roman marble group, of near life-size proportions, now in the Prado Museum in Madrid (fig. 1). The statue – probably excavated on the site of the ancient Gardens of Sallust in Rome – was first recorded in a 1623 inventory of the Ludovisi collection, in whose palace on the Pincian Hill it resided until it was acquired by Cardinal Camillo Massimi (1620–1677). Upon Massimi’s death, the painter Carlo Maratta entreated Queen Christina of Sweden (1626–1689; fig. 2), who had by then settled in Rome after having abdicated in 1654, to acquire the marble, hoping that the prized antiquity





fig. 2 David Beck Queen Christina of Sweden, c. 1650, oil on copper Stockholm, Livrustkammaren (Royal Armoury)

would thus remain in Rome. She heeded Maratta’s advice, but, as a result of a series of hereditary successions, this did not save the Castor and Pollux from being sold, in 1724, to King Philip V of Spain. The monarch chose to display it in his country palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso, where it remained until 1839, when it was moved to the Prado (for a detailed account see Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 173).

In 1638 the French painter François Perrier included the Castor and Pollux in his anthology of the most admired statues in Rome (Segmenta nobilium signorum et statuarum …, Rome, pl. XXXVII; fig. 3). He captioned the illustration ‘Decii sese pro patria devoventes’, believing the statue to represent the Roman Consul Publius Decius and his son, who swore an oath to protect Rome and sacrificed their lives in battle against the enemy, as recounted by the Augustan historian Livy.

A 1633 inventory, however, describes the marble as depicting Castor and Pollux, the identification that has traditionally remained the most widely accepted. The two were the twin sons of Leda from different fathers, Tyndareus, King of Sparta, and Zeus, King of Olympus. Together, they came to be known as the Dioscuri.



fig. 3 ‘Decy sese pro patria devoventes in Hortis Ludovisianis’, engraving from the 1660 Dutch edition of François Perrier, Segmenta nobilium signorum e statuaru (Rome, 1638), pl. XXXVII

Later in the eighteenth century, because the two figures are portrayed in the act of sacrificing at an altar with a libation dish, the archaeologist Johann Joachim Winckelmann understood them to be Orestes and Pylades at the tomb of the former’s father Agamemnon (Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 174). Several proposals have been made for the identity of the two figures, which remains the subject of debate, complicated by the fact that the head of the youth holding the libation dish is actually from a statue of Antinoüs, the deified lover of Emperor Hadrian, and was attached to the group some time before 1638.

Soldani-Benzi arrived in Rome in 1678, the same year the ancient marble group was acquired by his soon-to-be patron Christina of Sweden, for whose portrait medallion he cut dies in 1681. It is therefore highly likely that the young artist saw the statue and was aware of its fame. Only one other cast of this subject by Soldani-Benzi is known, now preserved in the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, Canada, and formerly owned by the heirs of the 1st Duke of Marlborough, an important patron of the sculptor (52.5 cm high; inv. no. 82/66). It is interesting to note that both the latter and the present bronze are larger than the format usually adopted by Soldani-Benzi for his models after the Antique (traditionally around 30 cm high), likely a decision dictated by the patrons.

The fine workmanship of our bronze’s surface, together with its characteristically Florentine, translucent, reddish-brown patina distinguish it as an autograph work by Soldani-Benzi. The definition of details such as the toe and finger-nails, the different tooling used for the altar’s surface, the expert modelling of the youths’ anatomies and the accurately drawn curls of their hair further point in the direction of the Florentine master bronzier, whose finesse of technique was seldom matched. related literature F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique: the Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900, New Haven and London, 1981 C. Avery, ‘Soldani’s mythological bronzes and his British clientèle’, Sculpture Journal, XIV, 2005, pp. 8–29



roman, c. 1830

14

Head of a Young Woman, known as Head of Isis After the Antique White marble 54 cm (21¼ in.) high 23 cm (9 in.) wide

This beguiling head of a youth, with large eyes framed by a beautifully drawn arch of the brows and lips gently parted, is modelled on an ancient female head today in the Sala dei Busti of the Museo Pio Clementino (fig. 1; 53 cm high, inv. no.

613), which is thought to be after a Greek bronze original from the fifth or fourth century BC, mainly on account of the treatment of its hair (Amelung 1908, no.

375). The Vatican head is considered to be a portrait, but an identification with Isis, the goddess of Egyptian origin whose cult spread to the Graeco-Roman world from the Hellenistic period onwards, has also been proposed. It was acquired by Pope Pius VI (1717–1799, Pope 1775–99) from the prominent collection of Cardinal Albani in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, and published by the papal Prefect of Antiquities Ennio Quirino Visconti (1751–1818) as a representation of Isis on account of her headdress (Visconti 1792, vol. VI, p. 27, pl. XVII).

Isis was one of the principal deities of ancient Egypt. The sister and wife of Osiris, god of the underworld, she was revered as part of the cult of the dead, as a magical healer and as the patron of wives and mothers. In Egypt, effigies of her traditionally featured a headdress surmounted by a solar disc framed by horns, which, with the gradual spread of her cult to the Hellenistic and subsequently Roman worlds, was transformed into a smaller solar disc, encircled by motifs that allude to snakes. Notable examples include the coloured marble Isis in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (Roman, second century ad) and the one now in the Musei Capitolini, Rome (Roman, first century ad).

The knot of hair that crowns the present figure’s forehead could have been informed by the Graeco-Roman iconography of Isis, and the existence of a female head with hair similarly tied above her head, excavated in Pompeii’s temple of Isis and identified as an image of the goddess (Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale), suggests our prototype may indeed have been connected to the Egyptian deity.

The foundation of the Museo Pio Clementino in 1771, open to artists, scholars and connoisseurs alike, and the publication of Visconti’s prized guide to its collection in 1792 certainly drew attention to the present head’s prototype.

Beautifully finished, our marble is the type of sculpture that refined collectors would have sought out during their Grand Tour to adorn the rooms, halls, libraries or galleries of their residences. This was the case, for example, of a marble version of the same ‘Isis’, which is now in the Ashmolean Museum (54 cm high; Penny 1992, no. 515). Carved and signed by the English sculptor Joseph Gott (1786–1860), 64

65

fig. 1 Head of a Young Woman, traditionally known as Head of Isis, illustrated in Ennio Quirino Visconti, Il Museo Pio-Clementino, vol. 6, I busti del Museo Pio-Clementino, Rome, 1792, plate XVII

who was active in Rome from 1822 until his death, it was acquired by C.D.E. Fortnum most likely during his Grand Tour in 1851, and located in his drawing room at Hill House, Stanmore (Penny 1992, no. 515). It is interesting to note that in our marble, as in the Ashmolean’s, the chest is broadened from the original the better to suit the proportions of the head, and the socle is slightly different from the ancient one.

related literature E.Q. Visconti, Il Museo Pio Clementino, vol. VI, Busti del Museo Pio-Clementino, Rome, 1792, p. 27, pl. XVII W. Amelung, Die Sculpturen des Vaticanischen Museums, Berlin, 1908, vol. II, part 3, pp. 558–60, no. 375 N. Penny, Catalogue of European Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum: 1540 to the present day, Oxford, 1992, vol. III, p. 95, no. 515





giovanni francesco susini (1585– c. 1653)

15

Florence, 1st half 17th century

The Wild Boar (Il Porcellino) After the Antique Bronze, dark olive patina 17.8 cm (7 in.) high 20.3 cm (8 in.) wide

fig. 1 Roman, 2nd–1st century bc, Wild boar, marble, 95 cm high Florence, Uffizi

Affectionately known as Il Porcellino, the present composition owes its fame to the life-size bronze cast of the original ancient sculpture by Pietro Tacca (1577–1640) that sat proudly in the Mercato Nuovo in the centre of Florence until 2004, and is now in the city’s Museo Bardini for conservation purposes. Excavated in the courtyard of a private residence in Rome in the mid sixteenth century, the antique prototype (fig. 1), carved in white marble, is first recorded in Florence in 1568, when it entered the Pitti Palace. By 1591 it was in the Uffizi, where it resides to the present day. Since its discovery the Wild boar has been admired for its naturalism and artistic quality, and was historically associated with the legend of the Calydonian Boar killed by the young hero Meleager, a figure with which it has sometimes been paired in later versions, such as Nicolas Coustou’s for Marly.

Our bronze, an exquisitely cast small-scale model of the celebrated antiquity, bears the hallmarks of Giovanni Francesco, or Gianfrancesco, Susini’s production, from the precise yet vibrant treatment of the animal’s fur to the neat contouring of its anatomy. Interestingly, Filippo Baldinucci (ed. Ranalli, 1846, IV, p. 118) notes that Gianfrancesco made a model of the Wild boar upon returning from a visit to Rome. However, a version of the Boar signed by the artist’s uncle, Antonio Susini, exists (now Berlin, Staatliche Museen) and we must not forget the marble would already have been in Florence during Gianfrancesco’s time. This suggests he worked from a mould present in his uncle’s workshop – which he had inherited in 1624 – and first-hand observation of the ancient original.

Conceived to be held in the hands of a passionate collector, this bronze belongs to the tradition of models after renowned antiquities that represented both homages to the masterpieces of the past and statements of their owners’ refined taste and cultural aspirations. An important version of the Porcellino, attributed to Gianfrancesco, is today in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello. Sitting on an elaborate ebonized and pietra dura base – probably supplied by the Ducal Opificio delle Pietre Dure – it is surrounded by four gilt bronze figures, an arrangement that points towards the high esteem this bronze was held in. related literature C. Avery and A. Radcliffe, Giambologna, Sculptor to the Medici, exh. cat., Arts Council of Great Britain, London, 1978, p. 196, no. 187, ill. p. 197 F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900, New Haven and London, 1981, p. 161, no. 13, ill. p. 162



roman, 18th century

16

Bust of Alexander the Great (356–323 bc) After the Antique White marble 59 cm (23 ¼ in.) high

fig. 1 Roman, Hadrianic period (117-138 ad), Alexander the Great, marble, 58.3 cm high Rome, Musei Capitolini

This striking marble bust has traditionally been understood to represent Alexander the Great, the man who almost single-handedly changed the nature of the ancient world in little more than a decade. The legendary king, commander, politician, scholar and explorer founded over 70 cities and created an empire that stretched across three continents and covered around two million square miles. At the age of just 25 he became king of Macedonia, leader of the Greeks, overlord of Asia Minor, Pharaoh of Egypt and Great King of Persia.

The present work originates from Rome, during the period when a close circle of cultural elites in Rome, such as J.J.Winckelmann and Cardinal Albani, laid the foundations for the formation and dissemination of the Neoclassical style in Western art through their insatiable antiquarian interest in the art of the ancients and their subsequent patronage of contemporary works after the Antique from Roman sculptors such as Bartolommeo Cavaceppi (1716–1799).

This white marble bust of Alexander in his conquering prime is modelled after the almost identical bust of the same subject in Rome’s Capitoline Museums (fig. 1). The bust is mentioned several times in the writings of J.J.Winckelmann, who was certain that the Capitoline bust was a portrait of Alexander. It has been said to originate from the reign of the Emperor Hadrian because the style and technique can be so closely compared to those of the Apollo Belvedere, which is generally accepted to date from c. 120–40 ad.

The fame of the sculpture in the eighteenth century was such that a number of important marble versions were made of it. The great Roman workshops, like that of Bartolomeo Cavaceppi, are known to have owned copies of the Capitoline bust and as a result, casts of the sculpture were widely circulated. One of these casts was acquired in 1752 by M. Brettingham and installed to great acclaim at Holkham Hall.

related literature R. M. Picozzi, ‘Testa di Alessandro-Helios’ in Il Settecento a Roma, Milano, 2005, p. 289 M. Picozzi, ‘Testa di Alessandro-Helios’ in Musei Capitolini: Le Sculture del Palazzo Nuovo, Rome, 2010, p. 496 C. Picon, Bartolomeo Cavaceppi: Eighteenth- century restorations of ancient marble sculpture from English private collections, exh. cat., The Clarendon Gallery, London, 1983





FRANCESCO RIGHETTI (1749–1819)

17

Rome, late 18th century

Bust of Emperor Vitellius (15–69 ad) After the Antique Bronze with a verdigris patina, on a pedestal of Giallo Antico, Orange Varois and Carrara marbles 47 cm (18½ in.) high, including pedestal 23 cm (9 in.) wide 12 cm (4¾ in.) × 12 cm (4¾ in.) base inscribed VITELIO on the socle provenance Private collection, Zurich, Switzerland

fig. 1 Roman, 1st half 2nd century ad, Portrait of a Man, known as Vitellius, marble, 48 cm high Venice, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. 20



Renowned for his fine bronze statuettes after the antique, Francesco Righetti was highly sought after amongst Grand Tourists in late eighteenth-century Rome.

He had trained in the workshop of the successful silversmith and bronzier Luigi Valadier, where he was probably employed above all in the modelling and casting of small and large bronzes. He quickly became a successor to his teacher, and in 1779 opened his own studio in Via della Purificazione. Renowned patrons of Righetti included the English banker Henry Hope (1753–1811), who commissioned from him a set of twelve lead replicas of statues after antique and Renaissance masters, and Frederick Hervey (1730–1803), 4th Earl of Bristol, who had two elaborate candlesticks cast by the artist. Significantly too, Catherine the Great of Russia (1729–1796) commissioned from Righetti a marble and bronze model of Mount Parnassus with Apollo and the Muses, and in 1805 Pope Pius VII (1742–1823) appointed him director of the Vatican foundry, succeeding Giuseppe Valadier (1762–1839).

In 1786 Righetti published a list of the compositions after famous models, the majority from classical antiquity, that his studio offered, which he issued again in 1794. Both editions featured ‘the Twelve Caesars’, an iconographic definition that refers to portraits of Julius Caesar and the first eleven Emperors of Rome, which includes Vitellius. The group of ‘the Twelve Caesars’ had been immortalized by the Latin writer Suetonius in his 121 ad collection of imperial biographies commonly known under the same title.

The surface of the present bronze has been carefully modelled, filed and then patinated to achieve a verdigris effect, associated with ancient bronzes, showing workmanship of the highest standard. The use of different marbles for the pedestal is consistent with Righetti’s practice, and speaks of the taste for marmi colorati that he had arguably absorbed during his time in Luigi Valadier’s workshop. A comparable bust of Vitellius attributed to Righetti, from the Lily and Edmond



J. Safra collection, was auctioned at Sotheby’s New York on 18 October 2011 (lot 755a), as part of an incomplete set of the Twelve Caesars. Another two busts from this series are probably to be identified with those published by Alvar GonzálezPalacios in his seminal Il Gusto dei Principi (1993, II, p. 254, fig. 511). Four busts from a Twelve Caesars series depicting Nero, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian, signed and dated by Righetti in 1788, were auctioned in Christie’s ‘Exceptional Sale’ on 4 July 2019 (lot 122). They are of the same height as the present Vitellius, and display a similar treatment of details such as the eyelids, the soft folds of each Emperor’s cloak, and the carefully delineated locks of hair.

Aulus Vitellius Germanicus Augustus (15–69 ad) was Emperor of Rome for eight months, during the last year of his life. He had risen to prominence first as consul and then as proconsular governor of the Empire’s African provinces, from where in 68 ad Emperor Galba transferred him to lead the imperial troops in Germania Inferior. Shortly afterwards, on 1 January of 69 ad, the army Vitellius commanded proclaimed him Emperor, soon followed by the other legions.

Meanwhile in Rome, Galba had been overthrown by Otho, so it was the latter that Vitellius had to face as he entered Rome with his armies. Once victorious, Vitellius was hardly given the opportunity to improve the administration of the Empire – albeit according to Suetonius and Tacitus he showed little inclination to do so – as before the year was over the Roman troops stationed in the eastern provinces proclaimed their own commander, the future Vespasian, emperor. After defeating Vitellius’s allies who had been sent to prevent him from reaching Rome, Vespasian forced his predecessor to resign his title. Vitellius died in Rome, according to historians, at the hands of Vespasian’s supporters.

Suetonius describes Vitellius as a man of abnormal height, “with a face usually flushed from hard drinking, a huge belly, and one thigh crippled from being struck once by a four-horse chariot”. Coinage from his short-lived empire portrays him as a middle-aged man with a round face and hooked nose, short hair and a stout neck, characteristics that in the sixteenth century were soon identified in a marble bust of man (fig. 1) likely excavated in Rome, on the site of the palace of the influential Cardinal Domenico Grimani (1461–1523) by the Quirinal Hill.

The Cardinal amassed one of the first and most prominent collections of ancient statuary of the Renaissance, which upon his death he bequeathed to the city of Venice, his birthplace. The effigy identified as Vitellius was from the beginning one of the most admired in the Grimani collection, for its powerful descriptive quality and for its association with an important figure in the Roman Empire’s early history.

The sixteenth-century sculptor Gian Battista della Porta executed a copy of the Grimani Vitellius, complete with paludamentum, which forms part of a Twelve







Caesars series in Villa Borghese in Rome, while another was sent by King Philip II of Spain to the gardens of the Casa de Campo in Madrid in 1571 (now Museo del Prado, inv. no. E000158), and the Louvre in Paris houses another copy from the same period (inv. no. MR684). The Grimani Vitellius also inspired the drawings and paintings of masters such Tintoretto, Jacopo Bassano, Palma il Giovane and Peter Paul Rubens, which reinforced the statue’s place in the canon of ancient works that modern masters should seek inspiration from. This is very well expressed in a charming painting by the Dutchman Wallerant Vaillant (1623–1677), which portrays a young artist sketching in front of a marble head of Vitellius (sold at Sotheby’s, New York, in 1972).

Scholars today have remarked that the refined style and technical characteristics of the Grimani Vitellius – such as its broad, imposing format, fine execution of the hair and meticulous definition of details such as the pupils – indicate it dates to the Hadrianic period, between the third and fourth decades of the second century ad.

related literature A. Gonzalez-Palacios, II gusto dei principi, arte di corte del XVII e del XVIII secolo, Milan, 1993



WILHELM HOPFGARTEN (1779–1860)

18

Rome, between 1837 and 1860

Equestrian Monument of Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121–180 ad) After the Antique Bronze 59 cm (23¼ in.) high 31 cm (12¼ in.) wide signed W. HOPFGARTEN ROMA provenance Private collection, France

fig. 1 Roman, Emperor Marcus Aurelius, c. 161–80 ad, bronze, 424 cm high Rome, Musei Capitolini, inv. no. MC3247



Wilhelm Hopfgarten was born in Berlin in March 1779 and received his training at the Berlin Academy of Design and in his uncle’s workshop, where he worked alongside his brother Heinrich (Teolato 2016, p. 6). The latter would go on to become the German master Christian Daniel Rauch’s preferred bronze founder.

When Hopfgarten arrived in Rome, following a period in France, he soon joined forces with his fellow Prussian artist Benjamin Ludwig Jollage, who was born in Berlin in 1781. Their workshop, including a foundry, was situated at Via dei Due Macelli, and the two soon established “a reputation in the city for their technical skill in fusing valuable pieces in bronze” (Teolato 2016, p. 6). Their ties with the thriving community of Northern European artists in Rome, including the renowned Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844), gradually helped them forge connections with several influential foreign patrons, such as the Crown Prince of Denmark, Prince von Blücher, Count Schönborn, the British General Sir Thomas Maitland, the Austrian General Baron Franz von Koller, and the pair’s own sovereign, Frederick William IV of Prussia. Hopfgarten and Jollage’s skill also impressed their Italian hosts – we know Antonio Canova considered them for the fusion of his colossal Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker, and no less than three popes (Pious VII, Leo XII and Gregory XVI) commissioned them on a number of occasions – and the Napoleonic regime, which employed them in the grand decorative project for Rome’s Quirinal Palace, including the imperial apartments.

This highly finished bronze model of the ancient Roman equestrian monument of Emperor Marcus Aurelius known as the Capitoline Marcus Aurelius is a remarkably accomplished work by Hopfgarten, who signed his name on the base of the cast, and a beautiful example of sculpture from the Grand Tour period.

The life-size portrait of Marcus Aurelius (121–180 ad) on horseback that our bronze draws upon is thought to have been cast between c.161 and 180 ad, during the Emperor’s reign or immediately after his death (now Musei Capitolini, Rome; fig. 1). A potent visual embodiment of power, it soon came to represent the model for rulers who wished to present themselves as heirs to imperial Rome. Already in the eighth century, the great Charlemagne (742–814) had an equestrian statue





from Ravenna transferred to the heart of his empire in Aachen, where he sought to emulate the layout of Rome’s Campus Lateranensis, the square outside today’s Lateran basilica in which the Marcus Aurelius then stood. In 1538, the monument was moved to the Capitoline Hill – the seat of Rome’s civic government – and the celebrated Michelangelo was commissioned to design its base, which supports the statue to this day. Interestingly, the bronze model of the Capitoline Marcus Aurelius made in 1465 by the illustrious Florentine master Filarete (dedicated to Piero de’ Medici) is considered to be the first Renaissance bronze after the Antique (now Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden).

With its renewed interest in Greek and Roman antiquity, the age of the Grand Tour saw a rebirth in the collecting of models after ancient statuary, as had once been the case at the courts of Renaissance Italy, with the Capitoline’s Marcus Aurelius becoming one of the finest and most sought-after subjects. Grand Tourists from the highest echelons of society would seek models after the greatest antiquities from the most renowned artists of the day, and treasure them as mementos of their travels and symbols of their learning and social standing. The activity of Prussian master bronziers Hopfgarten and Jollage represents a prime example of this tradition.

The commissions Hopfgarten and Jollage received ranged from models after the Antique to casts of contemporary masterpieces, from diplomatic gifts to decorative furnishings. Incredibly successful and prolific, their workshop steadily continued its activity after the death of Jollage, which took place in September 1837. On this occasion, an inventory was drawn up at Via dei Due Macelli, from which we learn of an unfinished model of the Marcus Aurelius, consisting of the horse alone and measuring 33 cm high, and of finished casts of the monument 62 cm high (Teolato 2016, p. 22, nn. 48, 51), dimensions that correspond closely with the present bronze’s. Notably, the inventory compiled upon Hopfgarten’s death in October 1860 reveals the studio’s production had shifted in the space of twenty years towards a certain number of new models after the Antique and more decorative compositions, many in the Pompeian style, yet the Marcus Aurelius remained (Teolato 2016, p. 14) – a sign of its everlasting fascination and appeal.

Characteristic of Hopfgarten in this beautifully preserved bronze are the smooth texture of the surface, the carefully picked-out anatomical details and the crisp quality of the drapery. A closely comparable example is the bronze Modesty, also after an antique model, now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. related literature C. Teolato, Hopfgarten and Jollage Rediscovered: Two Berlin Bronzists in Napoleonic and Restoration Rome, Rome, 2016



JOSEPH CHINARD (1756–1813)

19

Italy or France, 2nd half 18th century

Faun and Kid After the Antique White marble 116 cm (45¾ in.) high 50 cm (19¾ in.) wide signed CH i NARD provenance Heim Gallery, Autumn, 1984 (no. 37) Christie’s London, 17 June 1994, lot 393, “A French white marble figure of the faun and kid by Joseph Chinard” Harrods, London (possibly through Imogen Paine), 1990s Private collection, South East England

fig. 1 Roman, 130–50 ad, Faun and kid, marble, 136 cm high Madrid, Museo del Prado, inv. no. E00029



This exquisitely modelled group of a Faun carrying a kid goat upon his shoulders, was carved by the pioneering Neoclassical sculptor Joseph Chinard (1756 – 1813), after one of the most revered antiquities that were formerly in the collections of Queen Christina of Sweden, then Livio Odescalchi and later, King Philip V of Spain, at Palacio de La Granja de San Ildefsonso, Segovia.

Joseph Chinard was one of the greatest portraitists of his age. Born in Lyons to a family of silk merchants, he first trained under the painter Donat Nonotte at the Ecole Royale de Dessin in Lyons. He then worked with the local sculptor Barthélemy Blaise (1738–1819) and by 1780 he was working independently. Thanks to a local patron Chinard was able to go to Rome, where he remained until 1787, with a further visit in 1791–92, when he was briefly imprisoned for having upset the papal authorities. Back in Lyons Chinard received numerous public commissions and put his art to the service of the French Revolution. He visited Paris for the first time in 1795 and became part of the circle of the Lyonnais banker Jacques Récamier, whose beautiful wife, Juliette, would be the sitter for some of his most exquisite portrait busts. During the Consulate and the Empire Chinard enjoyed tremendous success. Napoleon’s military campaigns offered him a new heroic iconography and he received a number of public commissions while producing portrait busts of members of the imperial court. During the last five years of his life, Chinard divided his time between Paris and Lyons, exhibiting regularly at the Paris Salon. Most of the works exhibited were portrait busts, forming a remarkable gallery of the personalities of early nineteenth-century France. Chinard’s mastery of marble carving and terracotta modelling enabled him to create distinctive images combining stylization and realism.

The present sculpture is signed by the artist on the tree trunk, an element that also appears on the original composition and acts as a creative way in which to





introduce a weight-bearing support for the Faun’s figure. The size of Chinard’s version is closely comparable to the ancient archetype, which is now exhibited at the Museo del Prado, Madrid (fig. 1). Chinard has managed to convey the wonderful proportions of the original, capturing the male form in a magnificent, idealized state, as the Faun strides forward in an elegant, classical manner. The ancient example is considered to be a Roman copy of a Hellenistic original belonging to the second school of Pergamon (160–150 bc). The subject depicts the mythological creature known as a faun, or satyr, whose half-animal nature is indicated by his pointed ears, horns and the tail on his back. The figure holds a young goat on his shoulders, possibly as part of a Bacchanalian festival in honour of the god Dionysus. The work was discovered in Rome around 1675 and restored shortly afterwards by Ercole Ferrata (1610–1686).

As a much-revered example of ancient classical sculpture, versions of the Faun and Kid have been included in the most prestigious decorative schemes of private residences, artistic institutions and academies of Western Europe. Therefore, Chinard could have encountered these and made his own version, without necessarily studying the original at King Philip V’s San Ildefonso Palace, where it would have been throughout his lifetime. For example, Anselme Flamen (1647– 1717) had made a copy for Versailles c. 1685 and Pierre Le Pautre (1659–1744) had executed a version for Marly in 1685, whilst the French Academy in Rome had a plaster cast of it, which Chinard could have seen after his arrival in the city in 1784.

In Rome, like many ambitious young artists, he made copies of the most famous antiquities in order to learn the secrets of the ancients.

related literature F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900, New Haven and London, 1981, pp. 211–12



italian, 19th century

20

Apollo and the Graces After the Antique Bronze 42.3 cm (16½ in.) high 68.2 cm (26¾ in.) wide

fig. 1 Roman, 1st century ad, Apollo and the Graces, marble, 45 cm high Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no.6688



This work is a version of the ancient relief depicting Apollo and the Three Graces in the Museo Nazionale di Napoli (fig. 1). The antique original was first recorded in the inventory of Cardinal Odoardo Farnese’s Roman palaces around 1642 as “un basso rilievo con quattro figure due in un letto, et Apollo senza testa, et un’altra femina fuori di letto”. An intriguing object, the Farnese marble appears in a drawing by Pietro Testa (1611–1650) for Cassiano dal Pozzo’s famous Museo Cartaceo, acquired in 1762 by King George III (though not in its entirety) for his library at Buckingham House. Consisting of more than seven thousand watercolours, drawings and prints, the Museo documents subjects as wide ranging as ancient art, archaeology, botany, geology, ornithology and zoology. As scholars have pointed out, dal Pozzo’s choice of antiquities for the Museo was driven by an interest in the original and unexplored, criteria to which the Neapolitan relief evidently responded, since it was singled out of the immensely rich Farnese collection together with only twenty-five other items.

At the end of the eighteenth century – when Ferdinand IV of Bourbon inherited the Farnese treasures and ordered their transferral to the seat of his kingdom – the marble plaque must have arrived in Naples, where it would have been housed in the newly opened Real Museo Borbonico. Here, alongside other marvels such as artefacts excavated in Pompeii, the relief would have been admired by local and foreign visitors and artists alike, as testified by the present bronze, cast in Italy for a Grand Tour audience. Another intriguing testimony to the ancient marble’s appeal is a drawing of it attributed to the celebrated sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, now in the Thorvaldsen Museum in Copenhagen (inv. no. C832). In 1797, the artist had spent a month in Naples precisely to study the city’s antiquities, before going on to Rome to complete his training.



00





00

THE SCULPTURE MUSEUM

