The Dying Gaul

Notes

The present lot is a reproduction of a Roman copy, now in the Capitoline Museums, Rome, of the original Hellenistic Greek bronze sculpture, now lost. The original is believed to have been made by Epigonus, court sculptor to Attalus I of Pergamon, between 230 and 220 BC to celebrate a victory over the Galatians in Anatolia (now Turkey).

Pietro Barzanti, in Florence, was one of the many Italian sculptors who made small replicas of famous antique sculptures as souvenirs for tourists doing the European 'Grand Tour' in the nineteenth century.

Provenance

5th Avenue Auctioneers, Johannesburg, 2010.