The Sculpture Museum - Catalog - Page 65
fig. 3
‘Decy sese pro patria devoventes in
Hortis Ludovisianis’, engraving from
the 1660 Dutch edition of François
Perrier, Segmenta nobilium signorum e
statuaru (Rome, 1638), pl. XXXVII
Later in the eighteenth century, because the two figures are portrayed in the act
of sacrificing at an altar with a libation dish, the archaeologist Johann Joachim
Winckelmann understood them to be Orestes and Pylades at the tomb of the
former’s father Agamemnon (Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 174). Several proposals
have been made for the identity of the two figures, which remains the subject of
debate, complicated by the fact that the head of the youth holding the libation dish
is actually from a statue of Antinoüs, the deified lover of Emperor Hadrian, and
was attached to the group some time before 1638.
Soldani-Benzi arrived in Rome in 1678, the same year the ancient marble group
was acquired by his soon-to-be patron Christina of Sweden, for whose portrait
medallion he cut dies in 1681. It is therefore highly likely that the young artist
saw the statue and was aware of its fame. Only one other cast of this subject by
Soldani-Benzi is known, now preserved in the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto,
Canada, and formerly owned by the heirs of the 1st Duke of Marlborough, an
important patron of the sculptor (52.5 cm high; inv. no. 82/66). It is interesting to
note that both the latter and the present bronze are larger than the format usually
adopted by Soldani-Benzi for his models after the Antique (traditionally around
30 cm high), likely a decision dictated by the patrons.
The fine workmanship of our bronze’s surface, together with its
characteristically Florentine, translucent, reddish-brown patina distinguish it as
an autograph work by Soldani-Benzi. The definition of details such as the toe and
finger-nails, the different tooling used for the altar’s surface, the expert modelling
of the youths’ anatomies and the accurately drawn curls of their hair further point
in the direction of the Florentine master bronzier, whose finesse of technique was
seldom matched.
related literature
F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique: the Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900,
New Haven and London, 1981
C. Avery, ‘Soldani’s mythological bronzes and his British clientèle’, Sculpture Journal,
XIV, 2005, pp. 8–29
