Baroque Sculpture Found In UK Salvage Yard Could Bring £10,000

(MENAFN- USA Art News) A small marble sculpture discovered at a U.K. salvage yard is anticipated to sell for £10,000 ($13,300) at auction. Experts have identified the piece as a work by Pietro Bracci, an 18th-century Baroque sculptor.

The statue, initially misidentified by the business owners in Wiltshire, South West England, was acquired for £300 ($398) by a collector. This collector then took the work to Woolley & Wallis, a regional auctioneer, for appraisal.

Standing approximately two feet tall, the marble has been confirmed as the sole surviving maquette for a bronze statue of Pope Clement XII. This bronze, cast by Francesco Giardoni, once stood in the Palazzo Nuovo, a Roman palace the pontiff established in 1734 as the world's first public art museum, the Capitoline Museums. The bronze was later melted down during the short-lived French-imposed Roman Republic in the late 1790s. The only other existing representation of Bracci's work is an engraving created by the 18th-century artist brothers, Stefano and Rocco Pozzi.

The marble depiction of Pope Clement XII will be offered for sale on October 8 as part of Woolley & Wallis' Fine Furniture and Collections auction.

Mark Yuan Richards, the auction house's furniture specialist, remarked:“To have a rare eighteenth-century marble figure of Pope Clement XII by Pietro Bracci come to light is a remarkable opportunity. Bracci was one of the great sculptors of eighteenth-century Rome, and this extraordinary survivor offers a tangible connection to the world of the papal court and the artistic splendor of the period.”

Bracci, who trained in Rome under Camillo Rusconi, is most recognized for carving the figure of Oceanus in Rome's Trevi Fountain. Pope Clement XII initiated an extensive architectural renewal program, and Bracci received consistent papal patronage throughout the 1730s. Before the Capitoline commission, he had already completed a larger statue of Pope Clement XII, which was installed in Ravenna's main square.

The Pozzi engraving indicates that an inscription on the bronze celebrated the pope's building projects and the transformation of the Palazzo Nuovo. Bracci played a crucial role in this endeavor, also working on the restoration of ancient sculpture from the extensive Capitoline collection.

We previously reported:

The UK government has placed an export bar on a Renaissance sculpture by Antico, valued at £4.6 million, to allow a British institution to acquire it.

Source: Artnet News

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