.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The original group of the Wrestlers was discovered in 1583 near Porta S. Giovanni, Rome, and was purchased in the same year by Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici from the Varese family. The group was placed in the Tribuna of the Uffizi, Florence in 1688.
The increasing importance of such classical sculpture as chimney-piece garniture is reflected in the delight expressed in 1765 by John, 1st Earl Spencer, when his reduced marble version of the Medici 'Wrestlers' of the Uffizi's Tribuna in Florence was delivered by Gavin Hamilton for the Saloon chimney-piece that had been designed by the architect James Stuart for Spencer House, St. James's. Such bronze versions of these sporting youths of antiquity, known also as the 'Lottatori' or 'Lotta di Firenze' had been manufactured in Rome since the 18th century by bronzistas such as Giovanni and Giacomo Zoffoli and Francesco Righetti (J. Friedman, Spencer House, London, 1993, pp. 43, 106 and 154).
It was in commemoration of the marriage of Tom Naylor-Leyland (d. 1886) and Mary Anne Scarisbrick (d. 1902) in 1862 that much of the sculpture collection from Scarisbrick Hall was removed to Nantclwyd Hall, Clwyd.
The increasing importance of such classical sculpture as chimney-piece garniture is reflected in the delight expressed in 1765 by John, 1st Earl Spencer, when his reduced marble version of the Medici 'Wrestlers' of the Uffizi's Tribuna in Florence was delivered by Gavin Hamilton for the Saloon chimney-piece that had been designed by the architect James Stuart for Spencer House, St. James's. Such bronze versions of these sporting youths of antiquity, known also as the 'Lottatori' or 'Lotta di Firenze' had been manufactured in Rome since the 18th century by bronzistas such as Giovanni and Giacomo Zoffoli and Francesco Righetti (J. Friedman, Spencer House, London, 1993, pp. 43, 106 and 154).
It was in commemoration of the marriage of Tom Naylor-Leyland (d. 1886) and Mary Anne Scarisbrick (d. 1902) in 1862 that much of the sculpture collection from Scarisbrick Hall was removed to Nantclwyd Hall, Clwyd.