"Greyhounds at play". Italy, after Antiquity, 19th century.

"Greyhounds at play". Italy, after Antiquity, 19th century.
Carrara marble.
Measurements: 61 x 63 x 31 cm.

This marble sculpture, possibly made in the context of the Grand Tour of the old continent, reproduces the homonymous work of the Pio-Clementine Museum in the Vatican City. The original, dating from the 2nd century AD, was discovered in 1774 in the Villa di Antonino on Monte Cagnolo, near Lanuvio. Next to it, another very similar one was unearthed, where the greyhounds differ slightly in their posture, now in the British Museum.

The pieces, discovered by Gavin Hamilton (1723 - 1798), a painter of neoclassical taste and avid seeker of antiquities in the vicinity of Rome, were divided between Pope Clement XIV and Charles Tonwley, one of the most important collectors of Greco-Roman sculpture in Europe.