Lot Essay
The Farnese Flora, at 3.42 metres one of the most monumental of all the antiquities of Rome, was much copied on a reduced scale both in marble and bronze, notably by Rysbrack at Stourhead (Haskell and Penny, fig. 43). The fact that the left hand in this version is shown holding a chaplet proves that it dates from before 1819, by which date Tagliolini had turned the hand outwards and replaced the chaplet with a nosegay (Haskell and Penny, fig. 113).