Italian school, following models of antiquity; end of the 19th century.

Italian school, following models of antiquity; late nineteenth century.
"Gladiator Borghese".
Patinated bronze, black marble and ebonized wood.
Measurements: 50 x 56 x 23 cm; 6 x 56 x 27,5 cm (base).
Scale reproduction in bronze of the Borghese Gladiator, a life-size Hellenistic marble sculpture representing a swordsman. It was made in Ephesus around 100 BC and is currently in the Louvre Museum.
The work is signed on the pedestal by Agasias, son of Dositheus, a sculptor of whom no further information is available. It is not known if he is the same Agasias mentioned as father of Heraclides or if he is a relative of the also sculptor Agasias, son of Menophilus. It was found before 1611 in the present territory of Anzio, south of Rome, among the ruins of a coastal palace of Emperor Nero. Although commonly referred to as a "gladiator", it actually depicts a warrior facing an enemy on horseback. At the time, it was even thought to represent Achilles fighting the Amazon Penthesilea.
It was incorporated into the Borghese collection in Rome, exhibited in the Villa Borghese in a room specially decorated for it. In 1807, Camillo Borghese was pressured to sell it to his brother-in-law, Napoleon Bonaparte, and the sculpture was taken to Paris with the rest of the collection, passing to the Louvre.