This sculpture is presented as a Grecian herm or boundary-marker. The original Greek herms were depicted exclusively as Hermes, the god of traffic, roads and boundaries. They were dedicated to him for protection and erected as markers in the countryside and in the streets and squares of towns. Herms began as simple quadrangular pillars topped with the head of the god, but evolved to represent a greater number of deities in the pantheon, and to incorporate more elaborate carving (figure 1). The Romans subsequently adopted this form of statue as decorative sculpture for gardens and villas.

Figure 1

The bronze head of this herm represents the god of wine and revelry, Dyonisus/Bacchus, crowned with a wreath of ivy leaves, a plant much esteemed by the ancients. Binding the brow with ivy was thought to prevent intoxication, as was boiling the plant with wine and drinking it. Ivy is also commonly depicted entwined around the thrysic wand, another of Dyonisus’ attributes. Rouge et gris marble drapery wraps his truncated shoulders and tapered marble pillar support, while the bronze stepped plinth is wreathed by laurels and a ‘Venus’ pearl-string, which evoke the triumph of lyric poetry. The prototype of the present example exists in the magnificent Villa Borghese Rome, where it occupies a prominent position in the main hall (figure 2). The Borghese herm, of alabastro a rosa, was commissioned in the early 1770s for the Villa by Don Camillo, Prince Marcantonio Borghese (d.1800) and executed by the Rome-based silversmith and bronze-founder, Luigi Valadier. Valadier began working for the Borghese in 1759, when he took over the workshop of his father, Andrea. He worked in gold, silver, bronze and precious stones and marbles, producing both religious works at the patronage of the Pope Pius VI and the Vatican, and secular pieces for Italy’s noble families.

Figure 2

The present herm, although executed in a different marble, is made of almost identical, extremely fine bronze elements. The right shoulder bears a plaque, inscribed: G. Nisini – Roma, signifying the work of the Giovanni Nisini bronze foundry of Rome.  Nisini, whose showroom stood at 63 via del Babuino, won gold medals at the 1894 Antwerp Exhibition and the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris. The firm’s work included lost wax casts of sculptures from the ancient world, as well as important works from artists of the 18th through the 20th centuries.

The marble that forms the body of the herm is noteworthy in possessing unusual coloration and grain pattern. According to eminent British geologist Robin Sanderson, it is a reef limestone from the Devonian epoch, circa 380 million years ago, and was probably quarried in Wallonia, Belgium. Its structure is formed of fossil debris and remains of cementing calcareous algae. The deep blood red color attests to its high ferrous content. Considering the availability of rare decorative marbles in Italy in the 19th century, Nissini must have thought highly of this stone to have it transported from far away Belgium.

This herm formerly belonged to the collection at Rosenholm Castle in Jutland (figure 3), built in the Italian Renaissance style for Vice Chancellor Joergen Rosenkrantz and completed in 1570. In the 1740s the interior was remodeled in the Baroque style. The castle remains in the private ownership of the Rosenkrantz family and is acknowledged as one of the most beautiful and best preserved Renaissance castles in Europe. Figure 3

John Hogan (1800-1858) was one of Ireland’s greatest sculptors. He was born the son of a carpenter at Tallow, Co. Waterford, and by 1816 was apprenticed to Thomas Deane, a builder and architect for whom he worked as a carpenter and woodcarver. In 1823, he attracted the attention of the Irish engraver W.P. Carey, who recognized his talent and helped him  to study in Rome. Portrait of John Hogan. Cork City Libraries.

Hogan set out for Italy and soon made a name for himself, remaining there except for a number of return visits to Ireland, until 1848.  Famed neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorwaldsen is supposed to have said, “My son you are the best sculptor I leave after me in Rome.”  In 1840, Hogan was elected a member of the society of “Virtuosi al Pantheon”, the first British subject to be so honored since its foundation in 1500. Hogan died in Dublin on 27 March 1858, ten years after he finally left Italy.  Whilst in Rome he had sent much of his work home and subsequently today most of his sculpture is in Ireland. Hogan frequently exhibited at the Royal Academy in London, as well as at the National Exhibition of 1852 in Cork and the Paris International exhibition.  He was quick to take up the neoclassicism of Canova and Thorwaldsen when he arrived in Rome, and his seemingly effortless talent produced a body of work which was much admired, from his religious and funerary monuments to his large scale commissioned work and intimate portraits. Marble portrait bust of James Murphy by Hogan.

The present bust depicts James Murphy (1768-1855) of Ringmahon Castle, Blackrock, Co. Cork. James was a magistrate and a brewer who, along with his brothers, founded James Murphy and Company, Distillers in 1825. The Murphy family was also known for having several of its members in the clergy, including James’ brother, Bishop Murphy, who Hogan had also portrayed. The curly hair is heavily drilled and his eyelids sharply incised; this together with the strong modeling of the face produce a keenly observed and exquisitely sculpted portrait. The relief on the base (left) shows Mercury flying with cadacus and trumpet; the relief (right) shows Hibernia seated on a bale with cornucopia and a barrel.  Both reliefs are emblematic of commerce. Signed and dated on the reverse Hogan Fecit 1834.

We love zoomorphism and today we’re bringing you another piece that comprises several animalier elements, including one of our favorites- the serpent! This interesting carved walnut and faux bronze circular center table, circa 1820, is an example of Italian design in the early 19th century, which had been greatly influenced by French taste after the Napoleonic wars carried the Empire style across the continent. The base is comprised of four zoomorphic legs headed with lion masks and terminating in hairy paw feet. The legs are joined together by an x-shaped stretcher in the form of four serpents. The serpent heads meet in the center to support a sphere, while their tails appear to pierce each leg from the inside and continue on the outside. Figure 1 and 2 are related circular tables from southern Italy, also made in the first quarter of the 19h century, with zoomorphic legs that are connected by serpents.

The serpent has been used in ornamentation since ancient times and was reintroduced in 18th and 19th century decorative arts with the revived interest in classical civilizations. Though they have an almost universal presence, symbolic interpretations of serpents range from temptation and evil to regeneration and immortality. Groups of serpents, often knotted together, are also be found in heraldic symbolism denoting wisdom. Head over to Carlton Hobbs UK for more information about this great table!

A PAIR OF VASES ALLEGORICAL OF LAND AND SEA. SIGNED EUGENE CORNU AND G. VIOT French. Dated 1867. Provenance: William Humble Ward, 1st Earl of Dudley, Witley Court and thence by descent to Sir Herbert Smith (1872-1943) who acquired Witley Court in 1920 until sold Jackson Stops and Staff house sale, 29 September 1937, lot 808 Acquired at that sale by Violet van der Elst, Harlaxton Manor, Lincolnshire.

Sea-themed vase Land-themed vase Measurements: Overall Height, including pedestal: 7′ 10″ (240 cm); Height of urns: 45″ (114.5 cm); Width: 25 1/4″ (64 cm).

A GREEK BOXER WAITING HIS TURN. SIGNED J. GOTT English. 1836-38. A Greek Boxer Waiting His Turn Measurements: Height: 45″ (114 cm); Width: 42″ (107 cm); Depth: 27″ (69 cm).

PAIR OF FIGURES OF ANTINOUS AND ISIS FROM THE GALLERY AT LANSDOWNE HOUSE Part Roman 2nd Century AD, Part Roman Late 18th Century. Provenance: Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli, excavated by Gavin Hamilton in 1769 by whom sold in 1771 to William Petty, 2nd Earl Shelburne and 1st Marquess of Lansdowne thence by descent at Lansdowne House sold Christie’s House Sale, 5th March 1930, Lot 70, bought Mrs. Smith Woody English private collection Antinous Isis Measurements: Height: 5′ 3″ (160 cm).

THE EXMOUTH VASES Roman. Circa 1816. Provenance: Presented by Pope Pius VII to Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth Thence by descent at Canonteign, Devon to The 10th Viscount Exmouth One of the pair of vases Measurements: Height: 32″ (82 cm).

Figure 1: Bust of Antinous. Carlton Hobbs LLC. Antinous was a Bithynian youth and the favorite of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. Little is known about his early years, nor is it certain whether he was born free or a slave. We do know, however, that he was considered to possess extraordinary “beauty of form”1 and, joining the emperor’s entourage, became Hadrian’s beloved companion. In 130 A.D., Antinous accompanied Hadrian on a trip to Egypt. They celebrated the festival of the Nile and commemorated the death of the god Osiris, who is said to have drowned in the river, on October 24th. Coincidentally and tragically, Antinous too was drowned in the Nile on this day.2 The circumstances surrounding his death remain a mystery. Accident, suicide and murder were all suspected as the cause of his drowning, while another hypothesis states that a “mystic rite required the sacrifice of life on the emperor’s behalf.”3 Antinous may have voluntarily offered himself as the victim of this religious oblation, or perhaps it was Hadrian who persuaded his lover to die in his place. Hadrian, in his grief, declared Antinous’ deification and ordered innumerable statues of the youth to be set up around the empire. The city of Antinoopolis was founded in his name, and coins and medals were cast with his effigy. In Egypt he became associated with god Osiris and was additionally linked to, and represented as, Dionysus. “The countless images set up in Antinous’ memory form a very visible and highly influential part of Hadrian’s legacy.”4 Hadrian surrounded himself with the image of Antinous in his villa at Tivoli, where numerous marble likenesses have been found. Figure 2: Bust of Antinous. Prado Museum, Spain. It is presumed that after Antinous’ death, an official sculptural portrait was commissioned.5 The artist remains anonymous, as do most sculptors of that period, but the statue, which combined the quality of a classical god with individual facial features, became the paragon of classical beauty and perfection of form by which centuries of future sculpture would be measured. “[Antionous'] features influenced contemporary sculpture so strongly, that many works have been called Antinous from their resemblance to him, though there is no direct intention to represent him on the part of the sculptor. “6 Though some sculptures had been removed in the 16th century, the Villa was excavated in earnest from 1769-1771 by Gavin Hamilton, a Scottish painter, antiques dealer and archaeologist. Hamilton supplied some of England and Italy’s most prestigious collectors with works from Hadrian’s Villa, including Charles Towneley and the Borghese family.7 The Bust of Antinous in the Carlton Hobbs Collection (figure 1) is an early 19th century copy after an original of comparable size found at Hadrian’s Villa and now in the Prado Museum, Madrid (figure 2). Another, smaller, copy of the Prado original is the 18th century “Écouen Antinous,” which is now in the Louvre, Paris. Footnotes: 1. Combe, Taylor. A description of the collection of ancient marbles in the British Museum: with engravings 11. London: Nicol [u.a.], 1861. 2. Opper, Thorsten. Hadrian: Empire and Conflict. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2008. 174. 3. Gardner, Ernest Arthur. A Handbook of Greek Sculpture. London: Macmillan, 1897. 519. 4. Opper, 168. 5. Opper, 181. 6. Gardner, 519. 7. Dyson, Stephen L. In Pursuit of Ancient Pasts: A History of Classical Archaeology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. 9.

Irish. Circa 1810. Of marble. The rectangular top with moulded edge, raised on a flat spreading support to the rear with spade foot and to the front in curved leg, with acanthine carving to the top, terminating in paw feet.

Italian. Nineteenth Century. Identical terms to the present example exist in the magnificent Borghese Villa in Rome, occupying prominent positions in both the main hall and the fourth room of the gallery. Although executed in different marble to the current piece the extremely fine bronze elements appear to be from the same cast as those on the present term. The Castle of Rosenholm in Jutland was built for Vice Chancellor Joergen Rosenkrantz and was completed in 1570. It remains in the private ownership of the Rosenkrantz family and is acknowledged as one of the most beautiful and best preserved renaissance castles in Europe.

Italian. Circa 1820. Of statuary marble with a cippolino marble turned socle.

French. Circa 1930. These candelabra display a most intriguing and unusual blend of imagery derived from a variety of cultures. The double gourd form of the body has its origin in Chinese porcelain and this is underlined by the Chinese derivation of the pierced fretted gilt-bronze base. The naturalistically cast gilt-bronze roses bearing the candleholders issuing from stiff laurel leaves are a classical reference. The gilt-bronze handles in the form of braying donkey heads are without known precedent and could have a variety of meanings: A donkey may represent humility, honor or “Royalty” in disguise, as it was ridden by Christ on the Entry into Jerusalem, as well as by the Emperor Heraculis, divested of his robes, on entering the same city. The donkeys are tethered by a rope, which extends up towards and twists around the mouth of the gourd and then down to encircle its waist.

The Table English. Circa 1785. The Top Probably Rome. Circa 1600. This magnificent 16th-century Roman pietre dure top stands on an important neoclassical giltwood base, almost certain to have been made to a design by Thomas Leverton for the Drawing Room at Woodhall Park, the splendid mansion built in the 1780s for Sir Thomas Rumbold. The tabletop can be compared to a select group of similar pietre dure pieces that date from 1550 to 1620, which includes the Farnese Table, now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, the famed Richelieu table in the Galerie d’Apollon in the Louvre, an octagonal table in the Palazzo Quirinale in Rome, and a rectangular top from Fonthill Abbey. The present top shares a number of defining features with the aforementioned pieces that would suggest Roman manufacture during the second half of the 16th century. The technical virtuosity of the craftsmanship and the complexity of the design are enhanced by the great variety of stones employed.

Rome. Circa 1770. The present table is strongly related to Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s “free and highly eclectic mode of classical design.” It features a large, striking slab of veneered bianco e nero marble, also known as Grand Antique, which came from the Pyrenees region of France. The present marble top is a superb example of a veneered surface where the craftsman has used a double bookmatch technique, meaning the adjoining surfaces have been cut from the same samples and opened to create a strikingly dramatic double-mirror-image effect. The furniture designs published by Piranesi in his Diverse Maniere d’Adornare i Camini of 1768 reveal the elaborate eclecticism that resulted from his creative adaptation of different stylistic influences in his later work. Piranesi was highly influential as one of the principal forces behind the birth and development of the neoclassical style in Europe.

The Top And Frieze Section Probably Florentine. Circa 1720. The Base English. Circa 1820. This extraordinary table must rank as one of the most exuberant and flamboyant expressions of the late Regency taste and was almost certainly conceived and made in England in the early years of the 19th century as a vehicle for the display of its superb 18th-century Florentine pietre dure tabletop. The subject matter and character of the present top appear to have no precedent in the study of marble inlay in Italy. The composition of the top closely resembles an engraving by the Flemish-born artist Giovanni Stradano (1523-1605). The table base, which is composed of two entwined dolphins, forms part of a small group of early 19th-century tables with similar bases conceived in an antiquarian taste inspired by the English Palladian movement of the first half of the 18th century, and in particular by the furniture designs of William Kent.

The extremely fine tops to the present tables are geologically interesting, made from lumachella, derived from the Italian word for “snail” (lumaca). The stone is largely composed of marine fossil shells of two kinds, small ovoid gastropods (sea snails) about 1/2-inch long and larger oysters. The latter show up as irregular pale brown fibrous patches or accurate shapes. The slabs have been cut parallel to the natural bedding of the stone and thus represent a section of the sea floor. This stone is a rare sample and its distinctly green ground color suggests that it was mined in Tunisia and is of a type referred to as “lumachella orientale.” The extraordinary bases, with their bold stylized organic legs, united by stretchers bearing tasseled fabric ties, date from around 1700, and have no design precedent in the cannon of Roman baroque furniture. Their highly unusual form would have been well-suited to the extravagance of the Palazzo Colonna where they once stood.

The Mughal term "parchin kari" translates literally to "driven-in", and this technique of pietre dure inlay developed independently in India, at the court of Shah Jahan, the 17th-century Mughal emperor. At this time, architecture was evolving from grounds of red sandstone to white marble, and from relief carving to inlay with semiprecious stones in floral and arabesque motifs. The most famous Mughal building to feature parchin kari is the Taj Mahal, built between 1632 and 1653 by Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his wife, Mumtaz Mahal. The parchi kari of the Taj Mahal employs the same angular and curvilinear lines as the design of this tabletop, and is embellished with similar three- and five-petaled flowers, buds, and leaves. The base of this table was constructed specifically for these precious inlaid panels in the manner of Richard Bridgens, the 19th-century English architect and designer, who furnished residences such as Abbotsford House, home of Sir Walter Scott.

In 1819, John Howard Galton, son of Samuel Galton Jr. and Lucy Barlcay of Dudson House, Birmingham, was married to Isabella Strutt, daughter of Joseph Strutt, Mayor of Derby and Isabel Douglas. This table was made in honor of the marriage, with both families' crests and coats-of-arms displayed on its top using inlaid marble and hardstone decoration. The large shield shows the Galton coat-of-arms, with a small shield inside it showing the coats-of-arms of the Strutt and Douglas families. Above are the crests of the Galtons and the Strutts. The top's exquisite quality suggests it was made in one of the leading Italian workshops, where English noblemen often commissioned lapidary items. Its base has a pleasing Grecian simplicity, and traces of an unusual dark green coating indicating that it originally resembled bronze. The Galtons' home was Hadzor Hall, former home of Katherine of Aragon. The table remained there until 1929, when John Howard's grandson, the last of the Galton line, died.

This table derives from the Quattrocentro tradition of geometric inlay found in numerous Florentine tombs and chapels (for example, the Chapel of the Medici Riccardi, designed by Michelozzo circa 1459, has a floor that employs similar geometric patterns). The bold system of inlaid lozenges and circles give the top a striking modernity, which is further enhanced by the subtle color palette chosen by the designer. The table's large central lozenge is made of brown alabaster, which was invariably used as the central feature of pietre dure tops made in Rome and Florence during the 16th and 17th centuries.

This table was designed circa 1963 by English sculptor Henry Moore (1898-1986), for the living room of his home in Forte dei Marmi, Italy. It was made entirely out of travertine, one of Moore's favorite stones, which is a porous, yet durable, sedimentary rock that is used primarily in buildings, and which Moore used for sculptures including one commissioned by UNESCO, Paris. The stone was quarried near Rome, and the table was made by the Henraux workshop in Querceta, near Forte dei Marmi. The entire design and construction process of the present table was carried out during "one long summer holiday period", and it remained in the family's Italian vacation home until Henry Moore's death, after which it was inherited by his daughter, Mary Moore Danowski. According to Moore's daughter, apart from two wooden carved benches made in the early 1920s, this table is the only piece of furniture Henry Moore ever created.