The Dying Alexander
Italian School
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
circa 1675 - circa 1750
Materials
Bronze
Measurements
730 x 380 x 365 mm
Place of origin
Italy
Order this imageCollection
Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire
NT 108728
Summary
Bronze, the Dying Alexander, probably Italian School, c. 1675-1750, after the antique. The head of the ancient Greek king of Macedon Alexander the Great, cast in bronze after a Roman copy of an Hellenistic portrait in the Uffizi, Florence. Mounted on a bronze socle. Alexander the Great is depicted in the final moments of life, swooning, looking up to the heavens with intense, hollowed eyes and parted lips. The identification of Alexander the Great is believed to come from Plutarch's statement that Lysippus, the 4th century BC sculptor, once took a likeness of the king, portraying him with 'leonine hair and melting eyes, looking up to the heavens' (see Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 134-6, no. 2, fig. 70).
Full description
The sculpture is recorded as the 'Alexander in Bronze' in a 'List of Statues I have' compiled by Nathaniel Curzon (1726-1804) in around 1760 (MS, Kedleston Archive). It is a late 17th to mid 18th century cast, probably made in Italy, after the Roman marble in the Uffizi, Florence. The Roman head is believed to be a fragment of a narrative group. It was first recorded in 1579 as belonging to the Medici of Florence who commissioned Giambologna (1529-1608) to attach it to a statue. It was removed to the Uffizi in the late 17th century. In 1681 Queen Christina of Sweden requested permission for the marble to be moulded and cast in bronze by Massimiliano Soldani (1656-1740). Alice Rylance-Watson March 2019
Provenance
Probably purchased by Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Baron Scarsdale (1726-1804); identifiable in Nathaniel Curzon's manuscript 'List of Statues I have' (c. 1760) as 'Alexander in Bronze'; purchased with part of the contents of Kedleston Hall with the aid of the National Heritage Memorial Fund in 1986 when the house and park were given to the National Trust by Francis Curzon, 3rd Viscount Scarsdale (1924-2000).
Credit line
Kedleston Hall, The Scarsdale Collection (acquired with the help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and transferred to The National Trust in 1987)
Makers and roles
Italian School, bronze caster
References
Haskell and Penny 1981: Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique, The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500 - 1900, New Haven and London, 1981, pp. 134-6, no. 2, fig. 70