ITALIAN, AFTER THE ANTIQUE, 19TH CENTURY

Details

A PLASTER HERM BUST OF THE DORYPHOROS
ITALIAN, AFTER THE ANTIQUE, 19TH CENTURY
Depicted facing slightly to dexter and with closely cropped hair; truncated to the shoulders and chest; on a later painted rectangular wood pedestal
21¼ in. (54 cm.) high; 33½ in. (85 cm.) high, the pedestal

Literature

B. Stoeltie, 'Vintage Burgundy', The World of Interiors, June 2005, pp. 92-99.
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique - The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900, New Haven and London, 1981, pl. 66.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium, which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

The Doryphoros or Spear Bearer was sculpted in circa 440 BC by Polycletus in order to define the ideal figure. He sought to establish a canon which would serve as a complex mathematical model for the commensurability of parts, or symmetria, of the human body, where each unit dictated the proper proportion of the other.

The present bust is a plaster cast deriving from this original model that was, conceivably, cast by Domenico Brucciani in the late 19th or early 20th century.

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