Lot Essay
The present bronze is cast after Giambologna's original model which was conceived as part of a series of silver statuettes of the Labours in the 1580s and in the Tribuna of the Uffizi. It appears that the closest version to the present bronze is the similarly sized one in the Museo e Gallerie Nazionali di Capodimonte, Naples, that was in the Farnese Collection from at least 1731 when it was documented as having been inherited by Charles III Bourbon from Antonio Farnese. Interestingly, Radcliffe noted in his catalogue entry for that bronze (loc. cit.) that it was unlike the autograph version of this model now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, in that it lacked the fillet to the hair, was not of a typical Borgo Pinti or Susini workshop cast and that it sported a dark greenish patina - features that are also common to the present bronze.