A BRONZE GROUP OF WRESTLING WOMEN

A series of so-called 'genre' bronzes, previously said to be by the Master of the Genre Figures, are now attributed to the French sculptor Barthélemy Prieur. The composition of two wrestling women is said to belong to this particular group, of which several examples exist, most notably one in the Wallace collection, London (Mann, loc. cit.) and a further version sold in these Rooms on 12 December 1996, lot 106. Within 50 years of Prieur composing the original model, Leonard Kern produced a virtually identical group in ivory now housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (see Grünenwald, loc. cit).