AFTER THE ANTIQUE, ITALIAN, LATE 18TH OR EARLY 19TH CENTURY

The Dying Gaul, displayed at the Musei Capitolini, is a Roman copy of a lost Hellenistic sculpture, and is one of the most celebrated sculptures of the ancient world. It was first recorded in the collections of the Ludovisi family in Rome in 1623 where it was restored to its present form. It was taken by Napoleon's forces to Paris in 1797 and displayed in the Louvre until 1816, when it was returned to Rome. Widely admired as a powerful portrayal of heroic nudity, it was long known as the Dying Gladiator on the assumption that it depicted a wounded gladiator in a Roman amphitheatre, only being identified as a Gaul in the nineteenth century.