Lot n° 600
Estimation :
15000 - 20000
EUR
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Probably late 19th century Italian school after the antique - Lot 600
Probably late 19th century Italian school after the antique Mercury Seated
Bronze sculpture with brown-green patina
H. 120 cm - W. 70 cm - D. 110 cm (Good condition)
The Seated Mercury (or Seated Hermes) was discovered on August 3, 1758 during excavations in the peristyle of the Villa dei Papyri at Herculaneum, and was subsequently sent to the Royal Palace of Portici for display.
It is believed to be a copy executed before 79 B.C. after a work from the late 4th or early 3rd century in the tradition of Lysippus.
To protect it from Napoleonic depredation, it was probably taken with the Bourbons to Palermo in 1798. It returned to the royal villa at Portici in 1816, and was moved to the Bourbon Museum (later the National Archaeological Museum of Naples) in 1819. In 1943, the Mercure Assis was moved to Monte Cassino
Cassin to escape the German looters led by Hermann Göring.
Göring, but despite his efforts the antique was sent back to Germany.
It was finally recovered in 1947 by an Italian secret agent and is now preserved in the Naples Archaeological Museum (Inv. 5625).
The Seated Mercury is probably one of the most famous works discovered in Herculaneum and Pompeii in the 18th century, and a must-see for Grand Tour travelers in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Four plates by Fiorillo after drawings by Vanni appeared in 1771 and helped to spread the word.
Related works:
- At the Getty Villa in Malibu, California, the seated Hermes is located in the peristyle.
- A bronze copy is in the collections of the Kunsthistorisches
Museum in Vienna
- Villa San Michele, Anacapri
- Orsteds Park, Copenhagen
Bibliography:
Haskell, F, Penny, N, Taste and the Antique: the Lure of Classical
Sculpture 1500-1900, Yale University Press, 1981, pp. 267-269
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