RARE PAIR OF SMALL STELES
" Bull's forebody in an architecture "
Italian school, around 1800, in the taste of the antique.
Large antique marble on a gilded brass base.
H. 35,5 cm W. 21 cm D. 23,5 cm
BOTH SCULPTURES HAVE BEEN RESTORED.
For one the left ear is broken and missing.
The back side is broken and restored for one as for the other.
Chips on the different corners.
Two fixing holes on the top.
One has a spall on the left top.
We knew the bulls in the capitals of
columns with bulls' protuberances in the hall of the hundred
hall of the hundred columns of Persepolis. It was necessary to go
less far to find the inspiration: it is in Nimes
in its amphitheater, built probably by Augustus, where two
by Augustus, where two similar forebodies decorate
the main door of the monument. (Fig. 1 and 2)
References:
- Émile Espérandieu, L'amphithéâtre de Nîmes, 1933, VI,
the bulls of the arenas".
For a long time, specialists thought that these two outbuildings
had a relationship with the races of bulls.
In fact, they characterize the great works of the Augustan period.
Émile Espérandieu considers these two sculptures as a quasi
proof of the construction of the amphitheatre by Augustus. The author
reminds us that a bull appears on certain coins
of Augustus (Denarius of Augustus with a bull, 21-20 B.C.)
- These two saddles back to back, remind the capital of column
from the Apadana of the palace of Artaxerxes II in Susa, Iran. They are
decorated with two protuberant bulls leaning against each other, carrying on the neck
the cedar beams of the terrace (illustrated on page 154 of the book
"Les merveilles du Louvre", volume 1 published by Hachette, 1958.
The interest in "the antique" of painters and sculptors from the early years of the
the Empire, justifies the choice of the model that integrates the powerful
the powerful animal in a double frieze architecture: flutes and water leaves.
and water leaves. Despite the strength of the marble used, the precision of the
of the chisel is remarkable. It was then necessary to "mount"
this pair of masterpieces on a base in chased brass and gilded with
frieze of water leaves.
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