École italienne de la seconde moitié du XVIIIe... Lot n° 264

Horse attacked by a lion after the antique Bronze with black patina. H: 18 cm, on a green marble base H: 11 cm (Fouling of the patina, accident to the base). Related works : -Late 4th century B.C., Lion attacking a horse, marble, Rome Capitoline Museum; -Susini after a model by Giambologna, Lion attacking a horse, between 1580-1590, bronze, Detroit Institute of Art, inv. 25.20 ; -Giovanni Francesco Susini after a model by Giambologna, Lion attacking a horse, circa 1630/40, bronze with rich red patina, Collection of the Princes of Liechtenstein, inv. SK547 ; Related literature: -F. Haskell & N. Penny, Pour l'Amour de l'Antique. Greco-Roman Statuary and European Taste-1500/1900, Hachette, Yale University press, 1981, pp.266-267; -Les bronzes de la couronne, cat. exp. Paris, Musée du Louvre, April-July 1999, P: 78, no. 19 nos. 149-150. This group depicting a lion attacking a horse was inspired by the famous antique in the Capitoline Museum in Rome, whose composition was restored and completed in 1594 by Michelangelo's pupil Ruggero Bascape (attitude of the head; horse's legs, tail and hind legs). The subject was admirably taken up by the famous Flemish sculptor active in Florence at the end of the 16th century, Giovanni di Bologna, known as Giambologna. He created a pair of small art bronzes featuring a lion attacking a bull and a lion attacking a horse. The subject was taken up by his no less famous emulator Antonio Susini. The only surviving cast that can be attributed to him is preserved at the Detroit Institute of Art (inv. 25.20). The subject enjoyed a considerable posterity, repeated in smaller formats and with different variations and qualities by generations of Italian and French sculptors. The version more faithful to the original composition of the antique competed with Giambologna's with the antiquomania that spread from the second half of the 18th century in Italy, and the collectionism of the Grand Tour at the turn of the 18th century. Tour at the turn of the 18th century.