Borghese Gladiator
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
Unknown
Materials
Bronze
Measurements
585 mm (H); 395 mm (W)
Order this imageCollection
Clandon Park, Surrey
NT 1441021
Summary
[Destroyed in the fire of 2015] Bronze, Borghese Gladiator. A figure of a male athlete. After an antique statue, inscribed: ΑΓΑΣΙΑΣ ΔΩΣΙ ΘΕΟΥ ΕΦΕΣΙΟΣ ΕΠΟΙΕΙ [Agasias son of the Dositheus, Ephesus], which was first recorded in 1611, having been restored after been found at Nettuno near Anzio and then taken to Cardinal Borghese's estate but by 1650 was inside in a room, named after it, in the Villa Borghese but purchased by Napoleon in 1807 and is now in the Louvre, Paris.
Provenance
Marked in Lady Iveagh’s 1966 Inventory, p3 Purchased in 1986 with the aid of a grant from the V&A Museum Purchase Grant Fund and the Monument Trust
Marks and inscriptions
Inscribed ΑΓΑΣΙΑΣ ΔΩΣΙ ΘΕΟΥ ΕΦΕΣΙΟΣ ΕΠΟΙΕΙ [Agasias son of the Dositheus, Ephesus]
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, 43, fig. 115