AFTER THE ANTIQUE, ITALIAN, EARLY 18TH CENTURY

Details

A BRONZE BUST OF A CENTAUR
AFTER THE ANTIQUE, ITALIAN, EARLY 18TH CENTURY
Depicted with head turned sharply to dexter and wearing a ribbon in his hair; on a shaped white marble socle; dark brown patina with lighter high points
16 7/8 in. (43 cm.) height, the bust; 21 5/8 in. (55 cm.) high, overall

Provenance

Probably acquired by Sir William FitzHerbert, 1st Bt., whilst on the Grand Tour, circa 1768-9.

Literature

The Contents and amount of the Household furniture belonging to Wm. Fitzherbert Esq. at Tissington in the County of Derby as herein after mentioned, December of 22nd 1770 - 'In The Hall - 2 Mahogany pedestals with busts. . .£2-2s-0'
An Inventory of the Household Furniture now in Tissington Hall May of 30th 1775 - 'Goods in the Great Hall - 2 large Mahogany therms or pedestals & Busts'
'Tissington Hall. - II. Derbyshire, The Seat of Sir Hugo Meynell FitzHerbert, Bt.', Country Life, 18 March 1911, p. 382, illustrated in situ in the New Library
G. Jackson-Stops, 'Tissington Hall, Derbyshire - I', Country Life, 15 July 1976, p. 159, fig. 3
G. Jackson-Stops, 'Tissington Hall, Derbyshire - II', Country Life, 22 July 1976, p. 215, fig. 4

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique - The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900, New Haven and London, 1981, no. 21

Special notice

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Lot Essay

The antique prototype for this bust is the Hadrianic marble of The Centaur with Cupid in the Museé du Louvre, Paris, itself a copy of a lost Greek original from the 2nd century BC. The Hadrianic marble is documented as having been in the Borghese collection by 1613 (Haskell and Penny, loc. cit.) and by 1650 in the Villa Borghese in a room which was named after it. It remained there until 1807 when Napoleon Bonaparte, whose sister had married Prince Camillo Borghese, famously purchased the Borghese antiquities. As a result of that sale, the marble still remains in the Louvre; however, before its departure from the Villa Borghese it would have been on display along with the Hermaphrodite, the Faun and the Apollo and Daphne, all of which would have been studied by sculptors and painters alike, and all of which would have influenced the reproductions made to feed the Grand Tourist's desire to own replicas of their favourite antiquities.

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