Borghese Gladiator
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
| Borghese Gladiator |
| Agasias of Ephesus, c. 100 BCE |
| marble, height 199 cm |
| Paris, Louvre |
The marble Borghese Gladiator, ancient sculpture of a swordsman, about 2 metres tall, created c.100 BC, signed by Agasias of Ephesus, son of Dositheus was found at Nettuno in the Anzio region before 1611 and added to the Borghese collection. At the Villa Borghese it stood in a ground-floor room named for it. Sold to Napoleon by Camillo Borghese in 1807, it was taken to Paris when that collection was acquired for the Louvre Museum (Inventaire MR 224 (n° usuel Ma 527) ), where it now resides.
Misnamed a gladiator due to an erroneous restoration, it was among the most admired works of antiquity, providing sculptors a canon of proportions. A bronze cast was made for Charles I of England (now at Windsor) and another by Hubert Le Sueur was the centrepiece of Isaac de Caus' parterre at Wilton House. It was often copied in the eighteenth century. Copies can be found at Knole and Petworth House.
[edit] References
- Louvre catalogue
- Two copies at the Louvre
- Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, 1981. Taste and the Antique: the Lure of Classical Sculpture, 1500-1900 (Yale University Press) Cat. no. 43, pp 221-24.
