Lot 205

The Koplar Brown Family Collection, Lake Ozark, Missouri
Christie's New York, 19th Century Furniture, Sculpture, Works of Art and Ceramics, 25 October 2007, lot 406
acquired from the above

The Italian Pavilion at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904, St. Louis, Missouri

In 1750 Karl Weber, a Swiss engineer working for King Charles VII of Naples, hit upon a spectacular polychrome marble floor during his excavations of Herculaneum. This led to a fifteen-year excavation of one of the most luxurious houses of the Roman world, known as the Villa dei Papiri, named for the volumes of papyrus scrolls it housed. The Villa, along with its treasures of mosaic floors, frescoed walls, marble and bronze statues, had been both destroyed and preserved by the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. Four years after Weber first came across the Villa, in 1754, his notes describe the discovery, at the end of the long peristyle (porch), of the 'Drunken Satyr'.

In Greek mythology a satyr, also known as a silenus, is a male nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse and are lovers of wine, music, dancing and women. In the present lot the elderly satyr is depicted reclining on one arm, his right leg stretched out in front of him whilst his other arm reaches high into the air calling for more wine. Beneath him the lion pelt resting upon a naturalistically carved marble rock is believed by conservators to have been added to the figure after it was excavated in the 18th century. Due to the reusability of the metal, it was rare to find bronzes, particularly of this size, intact as they were often melted down and transformed into other pieces. The original sculpture is not only rare in its existence but also encapsulates the potential of bronze and its capability to defy gravity. With the satyr's two limbs extended out into space his structural integrity is still maintained, this would have been considerably more difficult if constructed from marble due to its greater weight and lesser tensile strength. The original bronze is now safely held in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples and the other known replica, aside from the present lot, is at the Getty Villa, Los Angeles, where it adorns the ornamental pool in the Peristyle Garden.

Madeleine Norton | Decorative Arts & Fine Art Specialist