Silenus with the Infant Bacchus
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
circa 1850 - 1900
Materials
Bronze
Measurements
620 x 230 x 220 mm
Place of origin
Italy
Order this imageCollection
Belton House, Lincolnshire
NT 435417
Summary
Bronze on a bronze square base, Silenus holding the Infant Bacchus, Italian, c.1850-1900. Silenus, nude, is crowned with a garland of vines and leans against a tree stump whilst cradling the Infant Bacchus.
Full description
The sculpture is after a Roman marble copy of a bronze thought to be by Lysippus or his school. The Roman marble was discovered in 1594 or earlier by Carlo Mutti at his estate near the present Casino Massimo, part of the ancient Gardens of Sallust near the Quirinal (Haskell and Penny 1981, no.77, p.307). It transferred to the Villa Borghese in the 17th century and later purchased by Napoleon Bonaparte, the brother-in-law of Prince Camillo Borghese. It is now in The Louvre, Paris. Casts and copies of the much admired marble include a full-size bronze cast in the 1570s for Cardinal Fernando de’Medici, a plaster cast made in 1650 for Philip IV of Spain and a marble copy made in 1684 for Louis XIV, among others. Small-scale bronze copies were produced in the late 18th century by Francesco Righetti (1749-1819) and Giovanni Zoffoli (1745-1805) workshops. Ferdinand Barbedienne (1810-92), a leading 19th century French bronze founder, also produced reductions: one of which was given by Prince Albert to Queen Victoria as a Christmas present in 1858 (Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 41549). Alice Rylance-Watson September 2018
Provenance
Purchased with a grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) from Edward John Peregrine Cust, 7th Baron Brownlow, C. St J. (b.1936) in 1984.
Credit line
Belton House, The Brownlow Collection (acquired with the help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund by the National Trust in 1984)
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, no.77, p.307