BUST OF MENELAUS OR AJAX (PASQUIN GROUP). BRONZE. 20TH CENTURY.

Bust of Menelaus or Ajax (Pasquino Group). Bronze. Twentieth century. Bust made of bronze that shows a man with a beard, dressed in a cloak gathered in a circular brooch and with a strap on the other shoulder, and wearing a helmet decorated with reliefs. The work is inspired by a highly appreciated sculpture known as the Pasquino Group (or Menelaus carrying the body of Patroclus or Ajax carrying the body of Achilles), made in marble copying a Hellenistic bronze and dated around 200-150 BC. C. About fifteen Roman marble copies are known of it, many “intervened” (or restored) during the 16th and 17th centuries. The earliest of these copies were first documented in Rome in the 1500s. Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, purchased an ancient marble fragment of an armored male bust supporting a dying companion, moved it to Florence (inventoryed in 1574) and Ferdinando II commissioned its “restoration” (rather intervention) to Lodovico Salvetti according to the model of Pietro Tacca, giving rise to what is known as “Menelaus holding the body of Patroclus” from the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence (Italy). In 1771, Anton Raphael Mengs (Aussig, Bohemia, March 12, 1728-Rome, June 29, 1779) took molds of the parts he considered ancient (original) of this group and of the one found in the Palazzo Pitti (gift in 1570 by Paolo Antonino Soderini), and assembled them into a plaster model that was intended to be more faithful to the Roman original. After a series of vicissitudes, it was rebuilt in 1838 and exhibited in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Piazza della Signoria in Florence. This work by Mengs is cited to compare this bust with others inspired by those made by the neoclassical artist: Unknown Formator, Head of Ajax from Palazzo Pitti, c. 1770. Plaster cast. Dresden, Skulpturensammlung (ASN 1932); Head of Menelaus, Pushkin Museum, Moscow, etc. Likewise, it should be noted that many of these (for example, those mentioned in Dresden) are casts from a bust of Hadrian's time of an originally Hellenistic head of Achilles found in the Vatican Museums in Rome (inv. 694) and It is also considered part of that Pasquino Group. We must emphasize comparing this bronze bust with this marble sculpture. Weight: 110kg.

· Size: 82x55x116 cms.