BENJAMIN PROUST
FINE ART LIMITED
London
FLORENCE
THE WRESTLERS
CIRCA 1720
Bronze 34 x 34 x 30 cm Provenance Sotheby’s, Monte Carlo, 27 May 1980, lot 1161; Bought by Cyril Humphris; sold to James Stafford, Dublin Literature K. Corey Keeble, European Bronzes in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto 1982, pp. 146-­‐
148, no. 67, and p. 166, no. 178. D. Zikos, A Kleinplastik collection in Regency Florence. Giovan Battista Borri's bronzes and terracottas. In: Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Hill collection, exh. cat. New York, Frick collection, 2014, London 2014 pp. 37-­‐67, p. 57, no. 96Br 43-44 New Bond Street
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Comparative literature F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique, London, 1981, n. 94, pp. 337-­‐339 This bronze group derives from a renowned antique in marble1 that was excavated in Rome in 1583 and bought by Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici the same year. The antique sculpture was in the Villa Medici in Rome by the end of the century before being sent to Florence in 1677 and then placed in 1688 in the Tribuna of the Uffizi where it remains today. Also known as the antique boxers or Roman wrestlers, the sculpture of two male nudes engaged in a fight became famous soon after its discovery. It delighted artists and collectors with its intricate composition, tangled limbs and strong musculature and copies were made over the centuries, for example in marble for Louis XIV and in bronze by Massimiliano Soldani for John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough in 1711 (full scale copy, until recently at Blenheim Palace). Considered to be of great academic value, the group was copied in terracotta by Canova and described at length by Flaxman in his lectures. Bronze copies of antiques in a reduced scale, such as the present work, were also highly sought after. Documentary sources indicate that the great Florentine sculptors Massimiliano Soldani (1656-­‐1740)2 and Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652-­‐1725) made such bronzes. A group of The Wrestlers was exhibited under Foggini’s name at the Accademia del Disegno in Florence in 1767.3 The question of the attribution of the present cast is difficult to solve, yet it presents characteristics that are reminiscent of works by Foggini. The sculpture rests on a bronze base covered by grass and a type of foliage that often appears on works by the artist, such as Hercules and Iole (Victoria and Albert Museum, London). Furthermore, the smooth golden surface and the punching are also comparable to Foggini’s style. 1
89 cm high 2 see K. Corey Keeble, European bronzes in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 1982, p.. 146-­‐
148, n. 67 3 see D. Zikos, “A Kleinplastik collection in Regency Florence. Giovan Battista Borri's bronzes and terracottas”, Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Hill collection, exh. cat. New York, Frick Collection, 2014, pp. 37-­‐67, p. 57, n. 96Br