The Dying Gladiator
Italian School
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
1800 - 1900
Materials
Bronze
Measurements
140 x 280 x 140 mm
Order this imageCollection
Ickworth, Suffolk
NT 850847
Summary
Sculpture, bronze; The Dying Gladiator; Italy, c. 1800-1900. A small bronze reduction of one of the most celebrated ancient marble sculptures in Rome, known variously as the Dying Gladiator or the Dying Gaul. The subject is likely to be a ‘barbarian’ warrior who has been defeated and, as he slowly nears death, contemplates past deeds of glory but also no doubt his family and other loved ones he would leave behind him. The original sculpture is a Roman copy of a lost Greek bronze, that is thought to have been conceived originally for a monument celebrating Greek victories over enemy tribes. The Dying Gladiator, which today can be seen in the Capitoline Museum, has for centuries been one of the most admired of all the famous ancient marble sculptures to be seen in Rome. Innumerable copies and derivations have been made, in all materials and sizes.
Full description
A small bronze reproduction of the ancient sculpture commonly known as the Dying Gladiator. A naked man, who wears a torc around his neck, lies upon his circular shield, gazing downwards at his sword and a horn lying on the ground. With his left hand he grasps his right thigh, evidently attempting to staunch a wound, whilst another bleeding wound is visible in his right chest. The sculpture and the base were cast together. A crack in the base at the back, running from the gladiator’s buttocks to the edge of the base. There is some severe damage to the left shoulder of the figure. The sculpture known as the ‘Dying Gladiator’ but also, among other names, as the ‘Dying Gaul’, was first recorded in 1623 when it appeared in an inventory of the Roman Ludovisi family. It is thought that it had been excavated shortly before 1623 (for the sculpture and its history, see Haskell/Penny 1981/2024, no. 44). The sculpture was bought by Pope Clement XII in 1737 and placed in the Capitoline Museum. In 1797 the sculpture was ceded to the French under the terms of the Treaty of Tolentino and spent a few years in Paris, on display in the Musée Central des Beaux-Arts, before its return to Rome and the Capitoline Museum in 1816. There has been much discussion over the centuries as to the subject of this moving sculpture. Although its identity as a gladiator has long been rejected by most scholars, this is still the name by which the figure generally goes. It is generally agreed that it in fact represents a defeated ‘barbarian’ enemy. Indeed, the sculpture is now thought to be a Roman marble copy of a bronze group made around 240-220 B.C. by the Greek sculptor Epigonos, for the victory monument erected in front of the Temple of Athena Nikephoros in Pergamon, in present-day Türkiye, by its king Attalus I (269-197 BC), to celebrate his victories over the Galatians. The sculpture has been the object of admiration since it was first placed on public display, indeed it is one of the few of the many once so famous classical marble sculptures to have retained its reputation to this day. Innumerable copies have been made over the centuries, almost from the time of the sculpture's discovery, the diarist John Evelyn (1620-1676) commenting after his visit to Italy in 1644-45 on the number in both stone and metal that had already found their way across Europe. Small bronze versions were being made in Florence and Rome in the seventeenth century and through into the nineteenth century, when copies were also made in the Neapolitan foundries such as the Chiurazzi and Sabatino de Angelis (Chiurazzi and De Angelis 1910, p. 141). The small bronze version at Ickworth was previously attributed to Sabatino de Angelis but does not bear the foundry’s stamp so this cannot be correct. It was made in an unknown Italian foundry probably in the second half of the nineteenth century but perhaps a little earlier. Testament to the figure's popularity are the numerous other small bronze casts in National Trust collections, including Belton House (NT 435473), Felbrigg (NT 1399467) and Gunby Hall (NT 637918). At Saltram, the Dying Gladiator features (NT 872545) in the series of eight paintings of famous classical antiquities painted by Louis Gabriel Blanchet (1705 - 1772), whilst the marble sculpture was the direct inspiration for the Dying Gladiator made in 1779 by the French sculptor Pierre Julien (1731-1804), a bronze version of which is at Cragside (NT 1228373). Most visitors to Rome who saw the original sculpture were most struck by the poignancy of the subject of the dying man, Jonathan Richardson describing it as having ‘the strongest expression of any Statue I have seen’ (Richardson 1722, p. 301). But the most celebrated tribute to the sculpture comes from Lord Byron, in the fourth canto of his Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage published in 1818: 'I see before me the Gladiator lie: He leans upon his hand – his manly brow Consents to death, but conquers agony, And his drooped head sinks gradually low - And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, Like the first of the thunder-shower; and now The arena swims around him – he is gone, Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.’ Jeremy Warren October 2025
Provenance
Part of the Bristol Collection. Acquired by the National Trust in 1956 under the auspices of the National Land Fund, later the National Heritage Memorial Fund.
Makers and roles
Italian School, founder Sabatino de Angelis (b.1838) , sculptor
References
Chiurazzi and De Angelis 1910: Fonderie Artistiche Riunite. J. Chiurazzi & Fils – S. De Angelis & Fils. Bronzes, Marbres, Argenterie, Naples 1910 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. 44 Haskell and Penny 2024: Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, revised and amplified bv Adriano Aymonimo and Eloisa Dodero, Taste and the Antique. The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900, 3 vols., Turnhout 2024, no. 44