Italian, Florence, early 18th century

Private collection, United Kingdom

The present pair of bronze busts are reductions after two monumental ancient marble sculptures. The first portrait of a confident young man is copied after the head of the Hellenistic life-size Borghese Gladiator, which was excavated in 1611 in Anzio and shortly after acquired by Cardinal Borghese. The Borghese collection of antiquities, including the Gladiator, was bought by Napoleon in 1807 and from then on exhibited in Paris, now in the Louvre Museum (inv.no. MR 224).

The second bust, depicting a man of mature age with poised expression, is based on the ancient Roman marble bust of Lysimachus (c. 360-281 B.C.), who was the Macedonian general, and later, King of Thrace and Asia Minor. Bronze reductions of the marble Roman bust, which is now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples (inv. no. 6141), are rarer in comparison to the widely produced bronzes of the famed Borghese Gladiator - a favourite subject for bronze copies cast for the Grand Tourist in 18th century Italy.

RELATED LITERATURE

F. Haskell & N. Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture, London, 1981, pp. 221-224