Lot Essay
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique - The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500 - 1900, New Haven and London, 1981, pp. 286-8, fig 151.
A.H. Allison, The bronzes of Pier Jacopo Alari-Bonacolsi, called Antico, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlung in Wien, 89-90, 1993-4, pp. 35-310.
The present group, traditionally identified as Pan and Apollo, is a reduction of one of the most celebrated ancient marbles, of which the best known version is in the Museo delle Terme in Rome (Haskell and Penny, Loc. cit.). It and another, formerley in the Farnese Collection and now in the Museo Nazionale in Naples (Alison, op. cit., fig. 155) were both recorded as early as the mid-sixteenth century, and inspired numerous amorous adaptations which, however, tended to involve pratogonists of opposite sexes. The main difference between the two groups is that Apollo looks away in the Naples version, which proves that it was the prototype for the present bronze.
F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique - The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500 - 1900, New Haven and London, 1981, pp. 286-8, fig 151.
A.H. Allison, The bronzes of Pier Jacopo Alari-Bonacolsi, called Antico, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlung in Wien, 89-90, 1993-4, pp. 35-310.
The present group, traditionally identified as Pan and Apollo, is a reduction of one of the most celebrated ancient marbles, of which the best known version is in the Museo delle Terme in Rome (Haskell and Penny, Loc. cit.). It and another, formerley in the Farnese Collection and now in the Museo Nazionale in Naples (Alison, op. cit., fig. 155) were both recorded as early as the mid-sixteenth century, and inspired numerous amorous adaptations which, however, tended to involve pratogonists of opposite sexes. The main difference between the two groups is that Apollo looks away in the Naples version, which proves that it was the prototype for the present bronze.