Discobolo, Fonderia Nelli, Rome, end of the 19th... Lot 90

Discobolo, Fonderia Nelli, Rome, end of the 19th century burnished bronze 95x56x28 cm - with the base cm The Nelli Foundry, among the most important European companies in the casting of artistic bronzes of the classical tradition or taken from the ancient and among the few in Rome since industrial character, it owes its fortune to the founder Alessandro, former student of Antonio Messina, who from 1862 remained active until 1897, the year of closure due to debts accrued during the construction of the building on Via Manara. Nelli emigrated to Russia where she worked at the Tsar's court and where she died at the beginning of the 20th century. Numerous participations in Universal Exhibitions and many works emerged from the forge to which the most important Italian sculptors active in the sector of large commemorative monuments in Italian squares turned; among others, the group of the Cairoli Brothers by Ercole Rosa in the Pincio gardens in Rome, the monument to Arnaldo da Brescia by Odoardo Tabacchi, the equestrian monument to Vittorio Emanuele II by Ettore Ferrari in Venice and, by the same author, the monument to Latin poet Ovid for the city of Constance in Romania and replicated for the city of Sulmona.