LATE 18TH/EARLY 19TH CENTURY

The original marble versions of these bronzes were discovered in 1736 by Monsignor Furietti at Hadrian's Villa. Their decorative qualities offered copyists great possibilites for production in small-scale bronzes. Thus the latter part of the 18th century and the start of the 19th saw them produced in large numbers, both as miniature bronzes and life-size marble and plaster versions.
F.Haskell and N.Penny, Taste and the Antique - The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900, London, 1981, pp.178-179, figs. 91 and 92.