Borghèse gladiator

The Gladiateur Borghèse is a Greek statue of the hellenistic time, work of Agasias d' Éphèse. Interpreted a long time like a gladiator, from where its traditional name, it represents in fact a warrior. It is exposed in the Daru gallery of the Musée of Louvre under the number My 527.

Discovered

The statue is discovered in a fragmentary state towards 1609 with Nettuno (also called Oporto Anzio, old Antium), in the ruins of the villa of the emperor Néron. It is at once bought by the cardinal Scipion Borghèse, which makes it restore in 1611, probably by the sculptor Nicolas Cordier: the fourteen pieces principal overdrafts went up together; the restorer restores the right-hand man missing in the back prolongation of the silhouette, as well as the right ear and the sex. The statue is then identified like a representation of gladiator; it joined the remainder of the collections of the cardinal to the casino Borghèse, on the Pincio, with Rome, where it with the honor of an especially dedicated room.

It becomes known by all Europe under the name of “Borghèse Gladiator”, causing many copies and of mouldings. Thus, as of 1630, the king Jacques I {{er}} of England obtains a moulding from it and makes carry out a pulling bronzes some for the gardens of St James' S Palace. The private collectors are not in remainder: the fourth count de Pembroke makes run by Eustace Sweat another pulling which joined its gardens of Wilton. In its work on these gardens, Isaac de Caus holds a board with the statue, “most famous of all those which Antiquity left us. ” The German scholar Winckelmann is the first to reject the identification of the statue like that of a gladiator: indeed, the Greeks did not know the spectacles of gladiators. He recognizes then the Gladiateur like a warrior.

In 1807, prince Camille Borghèse, in prey with financial problems, decides to separate from part of the family collections. It contacts English collectors, but it is his/her brother-in-law Napoleon I {{er}} which becomes finally purchaser. The Gladiateur is without question the most important part of the transfer; it is dispatched by overland route - to avoid any English interception - in the first batch towards Paris, which it reaches in October 1808. It enters the collections of the Musée of Louvre under the number of accession 527.

Damaged by the successive mouldings, the Gladiateur Borghèse was restored in 1996 within the framework of work of “Large Louvre”. The restorations of the 16th century were preserved, but the surface of the marble, which had become very brown, was cleaned. The statue was then placed in the Daru gallery reopened with the public, where it makes during with the Esclaves of Michel-Angel, located in the Mollien gallery which is symmetrical for him.

Description

The statue, in Marble of the Pentélique, represents a naked man slightly larger than natural - it measures 1,69 meter of the top of the head to the plinth -, according to any probability a soldier fighting a rider located on its left. Strongly tilted forwards, it raises the head and is protected while carrying high its shield, whose fastener is carved on the left arm. The left leg is tended behind in the prolongation of the axis of the chest; only the point of the foot rests on the ground. The bent right leg supports the weight of the body, the balance of the statue being ensured by a stay in the shape of tree trunk joint the high part of the right thigh. The right-hand man was restored completely tended, thus reinforcing the side tension of work, but without particular need: it could very well have been folded. The restored right hand holds a section of sword.

Dating

The tree trunk carries the signature of the artist: ΑΓΑΣΙΑΣ ΔΩΣΙΘΕΟΥ ΕΦΕΣΙΟΣ ΕΠΟΙΕΙ / Agasias Dôsitheou Ephesios epoiei - “Agasias, wire of Dosithéos, Éphésien, made”. Unknown in addition, Agasias is undoubtedly a younger relative of the sculptor Agasias (beginning of first century BC), itself wire of the sculptor Ménophilos, both having worked with Délos for Roman silent partners. The sculptor of the Borghèse Gladiator probably belonged to a school of sculptors producing of the copies or the alternatives of famous hellenistic works.

Made particularly precise of the musculature returns to the school of the baroque pergaménien, just as the installation in diagonal points out certain statues of the group of Large Gallic dedicated by the Attalides of Pergame. The head was brought closer to the Tête Fagan of the British Museum, which belongs to the type of the Hermes to the sandal created by Lysippe.

On the basis of layout in particular of the letters of the signature, one generally considers that work was carried out between 130 and 90 av. J. - C. the historians of art are divided on its exact statute. Some lean for a copy of good invoice of an original of third century BC; others see there an original adaptation of a model pergaménien or lysippéen; others still an original.

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