Pair of Roman busts depicting Paris and Helen, after Canova

Sotheby's London, Princely Sale, 14 April 2011, lot. 319 (only bust of Helen);

Sotheby's London, Old Master Sculpture and Works of Art, 10 July 2014, lot. 150.

These elegant bronze busts are cast after Antonio Canova's celebrated models respectively in the Hermitage, St Petersburg (1810) and the Palazzo Albrizzi, Venice (1811) (Praz, op. cit., pp. 118, 121-122, nos. 207 and 239). They compare almost precisely with another pair of bronze busts of the same models, which appeared in the 1991 exhibition Fasto Romano and were attributed by Alvar González Palacios to the leading Roman bronze caster Giuseppe Boschi (op. cit., pp. 113-114). According to González Palacios only the Roman founders Francesco and Luigi Righetti or Giuseppe Boschi would have been capable of casting such high quality bronze versions of Canova's models. Given that the Righetti brothers were preoccupied with other commissions, he concludes that Boschi must have been responsible for the busts.

Paris and Helen are the mythical protagonists in Homer's Iliad. Paris' love for the beautiful Helen famously leads to the Trojan Wars and the eventual fall of the city of Troy. The present very finely cast bronze busts would have been particularly appealing to British, Russian and German Grand Tourists, who eagerly sought high quality souvenirs from their travels.

RELATED LITERATURE

Álvar González-Palacios, Il Gusto dei Principi, Milan, 1993, Vol. II, figg. 552-553

Álvar González Palacios, Fasto Romano, exh. cat. Palazzo Sacchetti, Rome, 1991, p. 113-114, fig. 16-17

M. Praz, L'opera completa del Canova, Milan, 1981, pp. 118, 121-122, nos. 207 and 239