ITALIAN, POSSIBLY ROMAN, AFTER THE ANTIQUE, SECOND HALF 17TH CENTURY

On the 14th of January, 1506, a group of ancient statues was accidentally discovered by a farmer digging in his vineyard on the Esquiline Hill in Rome, among which was the celebrated Laocoön.

The rediscovery of the Laocoön in 1506 had a profound impact on Italian Renaissance art. Sangallo recounts that the sculptural group was instantly recognizable due to Pliny the Elder's glowing description of it in his first-century Natural History, which at the time was considered the most important and trusted account of the lost artistic treasures of ancient Rome. According to Pliny, the Laocoön was "a work superior to any painting and any bronze" [Natural History 36.37]. The sculpture was all the more praiseworthy, he continues, because it was the result of a collaboration between three sculptors--Hagesandros, Polydorus, and Athenodorus of Rhodes--and was carved out of a single block of marble. To Michelangelo and his fellow artists, its reemergence must have been understood as divine providence: precisely at a time when they were striving to equal or even surpass the great achievements of their ancient predecessors, a fabled masterpiece literally reappeared out of the ground before their eyes. Immediately upon its discovery, Michelangelo and his companions began to draw the statue and converse about its relationship not only to other wonders of Antiquity, but also to the great works of their own day. Soon after the Laocoön resurfaced, Pope Julius purchased it and had it transferred to the Cortile Belvedere. The boldly-carved statue (fig. 1), with its emotionally-charged figures in contorted, twisting poses, proved a powerful source of inspiration not only for Michelangelo, but also for his great contemporaries Raphael and Titian and numerous other painters and sculptors from the Renaissance to the present day.

The most famous account of the tragic death of the high priest Laocoön and his sons was Virgil's Aeneid. The ancient Roman poet describes how during the Trojan war the mainland Greeks, having feigned retreat, hid inside a great wooden horse they had left on the battlefield. Suspecting treachery, Laocoön warned his fellow Trojans. Shortly thereafter, while Laocoön was preparing to sacrifice a bull according to his priestly duties, the gods sent two enormous serpents from the sea to attack him and his sons. The Trojan's interpreted Laocoön's horrific death as a sign of the divine disapproval of their refusal of the Greek's gift, and so they brought the wooden horse into their city, leading to its sack.

The present bronze, an unusually large example, was probably an important purchase for a Grand Tourist visiting Italy, intent on bringing back some of its glories to Northern Europe. Not only is this bronze of exceptionally large size but, dating from the 17^th century, it is an unusually early example as well. By the mid-18^th century, and accelerating in the 19^th century, small-scale bronze and marble versions of the famous Antique sculptures were being produced in large numbers. But at this early date, only the most intrepid and sophisticated – and wealthy – collectors were able to commission or purchase such a bronze as the present version. This bronze is also distinguished by a dramatic departure from the original marble – as the serpent is not biting Laocoön’s thigh – but lays alongside it looking forward. Possibly this was a specific request by the patron who commissioned this bronze, a request to depict a slightly less anguished scene. The inventory numbers, even though probably dating from the 20^th century, are tantalizingly vague and have not yet provided any further clues to this mysterious and magnificent bronze. But this composition remains as powerfully emotive today as it was to the astonished Renaissance viewer.