Printed from Woolley & Wallis

Description

A FRENCH BRONZE FIGURE OF THE DYING GLADIATOR

AFTER PIERRE JULIEN (FRENCH 1731-1804), EARLY 19TH CENTURY

modelled as a bearded gladiator leaning on his shield, his sword on the ground, on a naturalistic base

60cm high, 49cm wide, 33.5cm deep

Catalogue Note

This bronze casting of The Dying Gladiator is taken from the original, currently held in Le Louvre, Paris, and which is considered to be one of Julien's masterpieces. It was Julien's second admission piece for the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. Submitted in 1778, he was admitted to the Academie Royale in March 1779 and appointed as an assistant teacher in 1781.

He had started his training under Guillaume Coustou in Paris in around 1765, was awarded a scholarship to the Academie de France in Rome, where he studied for three years, after which he returned to Coustou's studios to develop his skills and style until Coustou's death in 1777. It is probably that his original inspiration came from the Roman marble called the Dying Gaul or, occasionally, the Dying Gladiator which is held in the Capitoline Museums in Rome. This shows a dying warrior in a near prone position where as Julien chose a more upright pose, perhaps better emphasising the tension, anxiety and ultimate failure of the gladiator to win the laurel crown beneath his left hand.

Another version of this figure is held at Cragside, the National Trust property in Northumberland. Others versions can also be found in Bury Art Museum and the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky. Examples that have been sold at auction include Sotheby’s London, 20 March 1992, lot 91 and Sotheby's Paris, Important French Furniture, Sculpture and Works of Art, 30 September 2011, lot 187.