A male youth
Italian (Roman) School
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
1600 - 1700
Materials
Bigio morato, breccia marble
Measurements
400 x 220 x 200 mm
Place of origin
Rome
Collection
Farnborough Hall, Warwickshire
NT 831167
Summary
Bigio morato and breccia marble, bust of a male youth, Italian (Roman) School, Nicolas Cordier (Saint-Mihiel 1567 - Rome 1612), c. 1613-1700. A bust of a young man of African heritage, after the so-called 'Moro' or 'Maure Borghèse' sculpted c. 1607-13 by Nicolas Cordier, in Rome, for Cardinal Scipione Borghese (formerly Versailles, now Louvre, Paris, inv.no. MR 303), Cordier's subject taken from a 2nd century CE head of an African youth in the Museo Nazionale Romano (inv.no. 49596). The bust carved of fine-grained, dark-grey bigio morato marble, and highly-polished. The eyes of inlaid white glass paste and black glass or stone for the pupils. The hair drilled; the earlobes drilled presumably for the hanging of metal earrings, now lost. Mounted on a red and white breccia marble socle with tabula. See also Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv.no. 2019.283.32 and Christie's, London, 4 June 2019, lot 135.
Provenance
Apparently acquired in Rome, according to an unverified account from a 'visitor to Farnborough Hall' in 1746.
Makers and roles
Italian (Roman) School, sculptor after Nicolas Cordier (Saint-Mihiel 1567 - Rome 1612), sculptor
References
Giffin 2012: Erin Giffin, 'Nicolas Cordier’s Il Moro The African as “Christian Antiquity” in Early Modern Rome', unpublished MA thesis, University of Washington, 2012 Scholl 1995: Andreas Scholl, Die antiken Skulpturen in Farnborough Hall sowie in Althorp House, Blenheim Palace, Lyme Park and Penrice Castle, Monumenta artis Romanae. Antike Skulpturen in englischen Schlössern, 23, Mainz am Rhein, 1995 Schneider 1986: Rolf Michael Schneider, Bunte Barbaren: Orientalenstatuen aus farbigem Marmor in der römischen Rapräsentationskunst, Worms 1986., p. 176. Pressouyre 1984: Sylvia Pressouyre, Nicolas Cordier. Recherches sur la sculpture à Rome autour de 1600, Collection de l'École française de Rome 73, Rome 1984, pp. 413-5, no. 21