Laocoon
Unknown
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
1800 - 1899
Materials
Bronze
Measurements
840 x 600 x 320 mm
Order this imageCollection
Felbrigg, Norfolk
NT 1399562
Summary
A bronze sculpture on a stepped base. It shows a group of three men, the Trojan priest Laocoon and his two sons, wrestling with snakes sent by the goddess Athene for their impiety in doubting (rightly) that the wooden horse left by the Greeks was really a votive offering. A 19th-century bronze cast after the celebrated marble rediscovered on the property of Felice de' Freddi near S. Maria Maggiore in Rome in 1506 which was bought by Pope Julius II then taken to the Belvedere and installed in the courtyard where it remains, even though it spent some time in France between 1797 and 1816. In about 1510 Bramante arranged for four sculptors to make wax models of it and the young Jacopo Sansovino was asked to cast it in bronze by Cardinal Grimani. This eventually ended up in France, having been presented to the Cardinal of Lorraine in 1534. By 1523 Bandinelli had made a full-size marble copy which was to be a present for François I from Pope Leo X but ended up in the Uffizi and a bronze copy was made for Fontainebleau. A bronze copy from a marble version by Jean-Baptiste Tuby of 1696 in Versailles was made by Kellers under Girardon's direction and was acquired by Sir Robert Walpole's son, Robert for Houghton Hall, Norfolk.
Provenance
Part of the Windham Collection. The hall and contents were bequeathed to the National Trust in 1969 by Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer (1906-1969)
Makers and roles
Unknown, sculptor