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拍品專文
The main figure, which has been transferred through from the recto to the verso with additions, is a nude Greek athlete, about to take on an opponent in the pankration, a brutal free-style form of contest that included wrestling, boxing and kicking. On the verso he is shown wearing a long-sleeved Antique boxing glove with a leather flap to protect his hand (for this detail see H. M. Lee, ‘The later Greek boxing glove and the Roman Caestus,’ Nikephoros, 10, 1997, pp. 161-178 and D.G. Kyle, Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World, Oxford, 2007, pp. 124-126, 330. For another drawing by Fuseli of a Greek athlete see lot 92 (verso).
Fuseli's first representation of a boxing match was characteristically inspired by a literary source, Theocritus, Idylls, XXII, where Polydeuces defeats and kills Amycus, son of Poseidon and King of Bithynia (Schiff, no. 328, circa 1762-1764). He modelled his protagonists on the colossal statue by Johann Reichel of Saint Michael triumphing over the Devil, that he saw in Augsburg, Germany, while he was in exile from Switzerland, expelled for revealing the depredations of a corrupt Zurich magistrate. The artist based the figure of his protagonist, the defeated Barbarian, Amycus, with his damaged face and bloody wounds, on Reichel's figure of the Devil, while Polydeuces is portrayed in the pose of Saint Michael. The recto also displays a drawing of a seated figure in profile, perhaps of a judge watching the boxing match or alternatively a separate unrelated study. For a similar use of pen and ink, and the rather idiosyncratic hatching on the man’s lower torso on the recto, see Fuseli’s drawing of Hercules subduing the Hind of Ceryneia (Schiff, no. 1163, illustrated II, p. 337, circa 1798-1800).
The principal figure on the verso seems to have been transferred from the recto and elaborated. Also on the verso are subsidiary studies of a man, either reclining or standing on one leg, and, above the main figure, what seems to be the head of a woman.
Fuseli's first representation of a boxing match was characteristically inspired by a literary source, Theocritus, Idylls, XXII, where Polydeuces defeats and kills Amycus, son of Poseidon and King of Bithynia (Schiff, no. 328, circa 1762-1764). He modelled his protagonists on the colossal statue by Johann Reichel of Saint Michael triumphing over the Devil, that he saw in Augsburg, Germany, while he was in exile from Switzerland, expelled for revealing the depredations of a corrupt Zurich magistrate. The artist based the figure of his protagonist, the defeated Barbarian, Amycus, with his damaged face and bloody wounds, on Reichel's figure of the Devil, while Polydeuces is portrayed in the pose of Saint Michael. The recto also displays a drawing of a seated figure in profile, perhaps of a judge watching the boxing match or alternatively a separate unrelated study. For a similar use of pen and ink, and the rather idiosyncratic hatching on the man’s lower torso on the recto, see Fuseli’s drawing of Hercules subduing the Hind of Ceryneia (Schiff, no. 1163, illustrated II, p. 337, circa 1798-1800).
The principal figure on the verso seems to have been transferred from the recto and elaborated. Also on the verso are subsidiary studies of a man, either reclining or standing on one leg, and, above the main figure, what seems to be the head of a woman.