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Fine Arts and Music Collection

Angelicoussis, Elizabeth. "Diomedes and Diskobolus: among the collection of classical sculpture belonging to the 1st Marquess of Lansdowne was a Roman copy of a lost bronze of Diskobolus by the Greek sculptor Myron. Excavated by the dealer Gavin Hamilton in 1774, the marble's fascinating story has much to reveal about late 18th-century collecting."Apollo May 2011: 46+. Fine Arts and Music Collection. Web. 31 Mar. 2016.

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Diomedes and Diskobolus: among the collection of classical sculpture belonging to the 1st Marquess of Lansdowne was a Roman copy of a lost bronze of Diskobolus by the Greek sculptor Myron. Excavated by the dealer Gavin Hamilton in 1774, the marble's fascinating story has much to reveal about late 18th-century collecting

Elizabeth Angelicoussis

Apollo. 173.587 (May 2011): p46.

Full Text:

The classical sculpture that was amassed by the 1st Marquess of Lansdowne, William Petty-Fitzmaurice (1737-1805), in the late 18th century comprised one of the finest antiquarian collections in England at the time. (1) A former Prime Minister and 2nd Earl of Shelburne, the Marquess was responsible for gathering together an amazing ensemble that included some exceptional statuary. Many of the pieces had been excavated in Rome by the Scottish dealer and artist, Gavin Hamilton. (2) The collection was displayed in Lansdowne House, Berkeley Square, in grand rooms purposely designed as showcases (Fig. 2).

In 1930, in the middle of the Great Depression, Christie's, London, auctioned most of Lansdowne's treasures. (3) Many now reside in prestigious museums; yet the statue of Diomedes remained unsold (Fig. 1). (4) Lack of interest in this two-thirds-lifesize sculpture may be explained by its substantial 18th-century repairs, which have given the marble a disagreeable appearance. However, the sculpture does still contain a respectable Roman fragment of a celebrated Greek masterpiece. Moreover, the story of its repair offers a fascinating insight into the late 18th-century approach toward restoration, the salesmanship of dealers and the tastes of their clientele.

It is hoped that this article's examination of this particular distinctive Lansdowne sculpture and its interesting history will stimulate awareness in a new book, developed by this author in conjunction with Ian Jenkins, Senior Curator of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum and Daniella Ben-Arie, co-curator of the 2008 Thomas Hope exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The book aims to rediscover, examine, photograph and interpret the once coherent group of Lansdowne sculptures that is now widely dispersed across the globe.

In 1774 Gavin Hamilton unearthed a 1.15-metre-high torso at the Terme di Porta Marina on the coast of Ostia. (5) He immediately recognised its artistic merit, but knew that only complete statues attracted the best buyers and prices. Thus compelled to repair the marble, be employed the highly respected atelier of the sculptor Bartolomeo Cavaceppi, and the sculpture's seven-month restoration was completed in 1775.

Today we recognise this torso as a copy of the famous lost bronze of a discus-thrower by the mid-fifth-century BC Greek sculptor Myron (Fig. 4). (6) But when Hamilton discovered the fragment, Myron's masterpiece was not yet known, and therefore could not offer itself as a model. (7) Although the surviving torso provided some guidelines as to the figure's pose, considerable interpretive flexibility still remained.

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An unsatisfying completion of a similar fragment of a fallen warrior was made by Pietro Stefano Monnot (Fig. 6). (8) In a letter to the collector Charles Townley, Hamilton criticised Monnot's work, writing that his own newly discovered marble had a duplicate 'in the character of a Gladiator, but as this fragment is very imperfect, and a mere Torso, this able sculptor was led into a mistake of restoring it as a lying figure'. (9) Hamilton understood that his torso would have come from an upright but slightly stooped figure (his workmen nicknamed the piece 'gobbo' or hunchback).

Of course, Hamilton's decisions were also influenced by his own commercial interest. In his first mention to Townley of the completed work, Hamilton wrote that the statue had a perfect match in a Lansdowne marble he had already sold to his lordship (Fig. 5): 'It is liker the Cincinnatus of Lord Shelburne that anything elce I know.' Clearly, from the outset, the Scotsman had a specific client in mind.

For the subject, Hamilton selected an epic Greek episode: the Rape of the Palladion. According to this legend, during the siege of Troy, Diomedes, accompanied by Odysseus, stole the sacred image of Athena, the loss of which would cause the city to fall. Odysseus, who plotted to claim the prize for himself, attempted to stab his companion in the back. Sensing danger, Diomedes, weapon in hand, turned around and averted the attack, thus demonstrating great valour in the face of adversity.

At first glance, Hamilton's choice may seem puzzling. Anticipating objections from Townley, he wrote, 'You will ask me why I call it a Diomed, I answer because I have proved every thing elce absurd'. Later, while trying to entice Lansdowne to buy it, Hamilton was equally flippant: 'Your Lordship will ask me why I suppose this statue to be a Diomedes. I answer because it would be to the last degree absurd to suppose it anything else.'

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Yet Hamilton's selection of this subject was not arbitrary. In classical art the Rape of the Palladion occurs in a variety of media: painting, sculpture and metalwork. (10) It was also a favourite of ancient gem-carvers and frequently appears in 18th-century compendia of this art form. The 1724 publication of Baron Philipp von Stosch's collection, Gemmae antiquae caelatae sculptorum nominibus insignitae, devoted several engravings to the theme (Fig. 3). In 1755 J. J. Winckelmann--the so-called 'father of archaeology'--addressed the motif in an essay entitled 'Reflections on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks', which analyses the various stances of Diomedes. (11) He explored still more examples in 'Description des pierres gravees du feu Baron de Stosch' (1760). Illustrations show the hero standing, sitting, poised to leap with one leg flexed behind him, and armed with a dagger. The importance of the theme was further highlighted when the prominent archaeologist Comte de Caylus included it as suitable for representation in his 'Tableaux tires de l'Iliade, de l'Odyssee et de l'Eneide' (1757).

In 1772 the Swedish neo-classical sculptor Johan Tobais Sergel made a powerful impact on Rome's cognoscenti with his statue of Diomedes (Fig. 7). (12) The hero appears, head and body turned to the right with sword drawn, ready to repel his enemy. This marble was widely admired and contemporary accounts deemed the Swede's work 'as good as the Greeks'. (13)

With his rigorous classical education, Hamilton himself was all too familiar with Greek mythology. He plundered antiquity's legends--particularly the heroes of The Iliad--as themes for his own paintings, replete with all the dramatic gestures. (14)

Amid these many influences and examples, Hamilton quite understandably chose Diomedes as the subject for Cavaceppi's repair. The aim was to capture the heroic essence of his action so that the animated pose would complement that of Lansdowne's Cincinnatus, making the sculpture irresistible to the collector. Crucially, the Marquess had admired Sergel's Diomedes when he visited Rome in 1771; indeed, he had even made efforts to secure the services of the Swedish artist. (15)

Following clues gleaned from the remains, converting the torso into Diomedes was relatively easy; the musculature of the neck required a head that was turned to the right. Hamilton selected an ancient head of a 'greek hero'--so styled because of the man's furrowed brow and dishevelled hair. The torso also demanded that the right leg step forward, while the left should be poised behind, resting on the ball of the foot. The rotation of the right shoulder showed that its arm ought to extend backward, and Cavaceppi fashioned it so, with the hand gripping a dagger's hilt. This defensive gesture, intrinsic to Diomedes' story, is also found with other statues of warriors. (16) The position of the torso's left shoulder indicated that its arm was originally lowered, while the puntello (marble support) on the right knee proved a point of contact. Cavaceppi therefore positioned the hero's left arm over the knee, and placed Athena's figure in the hand, where it fittingly provides the raison d'etre for the sculptural drama. Lastly, to make the figure's affinity with the Cincinnatus obvious to Lansdowne, a similar tree trunk support and plinth were added.

It is evident from his correspondence with Townley that Hamilton cloaked the restoration in secrecy--which provoked the collector's curiosity and acquisitive instincts. Yet despite Townley's keenness, Hamilton had no intention of selling him this work, writing:

I never proposed to you my Diomed with

the Paladium.... If the present insieme

[Fig. 9] should raise your curiosity to

see a more correct drawing I will send it

you, & would even venture to send you

the original but I am afraid that its being

in your possession & refused by you will

prevent the sale to any body elce, upon

the whole I would advise you to keep

your money for acquisitions of greater

consequence.

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In other words, Hamilton knew that Townley, a discriminating antiquarian, would be dissatisfied with the restoration's deficiencies; a less astute client would not.

According to preserved documents, Hamilton first mentioned the marble to Lansdowne in a description just four months after restoration was completed. The Scotsman teases his potential customer by dangling a rare treasure before him and embroidering the story of how he only just managed to sneak the statue out of Italy:

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I have never mentioned to your Lordship

one of the finest things I have ever had in

my possession, as I was not sure of getting

a license to send it out of Rome. Now that

I have it safe on board the Felucca for

Leghorn, I have ventured to recommend

it to your lordship as something singular

and uncommon.

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In order to secure a speedy purchase, the dealer titillated Lansdowne's taste for ancient heroes with a further 'sales pitch'. He stressed that he was offering him a marble perfectly matched to a prized statue already in his possession:

Your Lordship when in Rome mentioned

to me particularly subjects of this sort

as interesting to you, but besides the

subject, give me leave to add that the

subject is first rate and exactly the size

of the Cincinnatus to which I mean it

as a companion, being a Greek hero to

match the Roman.... The contrast will

add beauty to each.

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Sceptics will say that the Marquess simply swallowed the bait. But the Diomedes did, indeed, complement its companion statue, offering visitors to Lansdowne House a pleasing and balanced sculptural ensemble (Fig. 2). By the lights of his era, the Marquess made an astute acquisition.

Every restoration offers a chance to assess the mind that is behind the interpretation of an ancient fragment. In 1805 the artist Henry Fuseli dismissed Hamilton, as one who:

had not perhaps the genius of an inventor

... [and] Though he was familiar with the

antique, [his] forms ... have neither its

correctness nor characteristic purity,

something of the modern eclectic

principle prevails in his work. (17)

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Combining unrelated fragments in commercially motivated 'marriages of convenience' may rankle today's purists. However, in the late 18th century a repair was considered acceptable as long as it followed the evidence of the ancient remains. While Hamilton's additions to the torso comprise little more than a third of the whole, it is indisputable that they radically transformed the subject from a figure in the act of athletic prowess (Diskobolos) to one engaged in a wartime exploit (Diomedes). Even so, the restoration is consistent with contemporary knowledge of the figure type, and by the standards of his era, the liberties Hamilton took were perfectly acceptable.

Seen from the long perspective of art history, Hamilton's approach to the Diomedes reveals a classically educated and perceptive mind adept at identifying and drawing on varied influences. Through his innovative blending of old with new, the versatile Scot endowed a mete fragment with interest and energy; and, as he boasted to both Lansdowne and Townley, the action was 'new and singular'.

(1/) For surveys of the Lansdowne collection and the construction of Lansdowne House with further bibliography see J, Scott, The Pleasures of Antiquity. British Collectors of Greece and Rome, New Haven and London, 2003, pp. 160-68; I. Bignamini and C. Hornsby, Digging and Dealing in Eighteenth Century Rome, New Haven and London, 2010, vol. I, pp. 321-26. For Lansdowne's travel to Rome see J. Ingamells, A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy 1701-1800, complied from the Brinsley Ford Archive, New Haven and London, 1997, p. 852. For the Marquess see The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn, May 2010, www.oxforddnb.com/view/ article/22070 (J. Cannon).

(2/) For the gentleman see Bignamini and Hornsby, op. cit., pp, 271-81.

(3/) 'Catalogue of the celebrated collection of ancient marbles the pro-perty of the Most Honourable the Marquess of Lansdowne', 5 March 1930.

(4/) For the marble see A. Michaelis, Ancient Marbles in Great Britain, Cambridge, 1882, pp. 467-68, no. 89; C. Picon, Cavaceppi, exh. cat., Claren don Gallery, London, 1983, pp. 22-25 no. 1; S. Howard, Antiquity Restored: Essays on the Afterlife of the Antique, Vienna, 1990, pp. 71-74; E. Bowron and J. Rishel (eds.), Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century, exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2000, pp. 242-44, no. 121 (S. Howard).

(5/) See I. Bignamini, 'Ostia, Porto e Isola Sacra: scoperte e scavidal Medioevo', Rivista Istitutio nazionale Arte e storia dell'arte, vol. LVIII (2003), p. 48: while Hamilton was granted a licence to excavate on 21 June 1774, he had started unauthorised digging there at least two months earlier.

(6/) For a thorough discussion of the type see A. Anguissola, 'Roman copies of Myron's Discobolus', Journal of Roman Archaeology, vol. XVIII (2005), pp. 317-36.

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(7/) In the 17th and 18th centuries the name Diskobolos described the statue of the Diskophoros, a standing figure holding a discus by Naukydes of Argos. See F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique. The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900, 2nd edn, New Haven and London, pp. 199-202, no. 32.

(8/) In 1734 Monnot's statue was acquired for the Capitoline Museums, galleria no. 50. See H. Stuart Jones (ed.), The Sculptures of the Museo Capitolino, Oxford, 1912, pp. 123-22, no. 50, pl. 21.

(9/) Three letters from Hamilton to Townley and Lansdowne are cited in this article. For the first undated letter from Hamilton to Townley see Bignamini and Hornsby, op. cit., vol. II, p, 122, no. 221. For the second letter from Hamilton to Townley, dated 28 November 1775, see ibid., vol. II, p. 78, no. 138. For the third letter from Hamilton to Lansdowne, dated 25 March 1776, see ibid, vol. II, p. 84, no. 151.

(10/) Lexicon Iconographum Mythologiae Classicae, Zurich and Munich, 1986, vol. III, pp. 401-06, nos. 23-105, s.v. Diomedes I (J. Boardman/C.E. Vafopoulou/ Richardson); J. M. Moret, Les pierres gravees antiques representantle rapt du Palladion, Mainz am Rhein, 1997.

(11/) Translated by Henry Fuseli. Originally published in 1755 as Gedanken uber der Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der Malerei und Bildhauerkunst.

(12/) National museum, Stockholm (NM SK 1475). For the statue see The Age of Neo Classicism, exh, cat., Royal Academy and Victoria and Albert Museum, 1972, pp. 279-81, no. 436, pl. 75 (J. Kenworthy-Browne). Thomas Mansel Talbot, having purchased antique marbles from Hamilton anal Jenkins, acquired Sergel's marble in 1772--perhaps on the recommendation of the Scotsman, See Bignamini and Hornsby, op, cit., vol. I, p, 323.

(13/) N.L. Pressly, The Fuseli Circle in Rome: Early Romantic Art of the 1770s, New Haven and London, 1979, p. 19.

(14/) Between 1760 and c. 1775 Hamilton executed six paintings Illustrating scenes from The Iliad. For Hamilton's enthusiasm for Homeric topics and the interpretation of the epic tale in the 18th century see D. Irwin, 'Gavin Hamilton: archaeologist, painter and dealer', Art Bulletin, vol. XLIV (1962), pp. 92-96; D. Wieberson, 'Subjects from Homer's Iliad in neoclassical art', Art Bulletin, vol. XLVI (1964), pp. 23-37; J.L. Williams, Gavin Hamilton 1723-1798, Edinburgh, 1994; Bowron and Rishel, op. cit., pp. 380-82, no. 231 (J.L. Seydl).

(15/) Lansdowne was in Rome between August and October 1771: see Ingamells, op. cit., p. 852. For Lansdowne's solicitation of Sergel's services see Editor's note, Burlington Magazine, vol. LXXX, no. 469 (April 1942), pp. 81-82.

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(16/) Compare with the kneeling Persian previously in the Palazzo Giustiniani and now in the Museo Torlonia: G. Fusconi (ed.), 1 Giustinianie l'Antico, exh. cat., Palazzo Fontana di Trevi, 2001, vol. I, p. 550, pl. 118; A. Stewart, Attalos, Athens, and the Akropohs. The Pergame 'Little Barbarians' and their Roman and Renaissance Legacy, Cambridge and New York, 2004, p. 301, no. 4, 309, no. 11, fig. 65. It was certainly known to Hamilton, since Cavaceppi had been involved with the dispersal of this collection in 1771. See also the Kneeling, Fighting Persian (Capitoline Museums Galleria dei Candelabri) of the 'Little Barbarians' group. The work was first noted in the Villa Medici Madama and then in the Giustiniani collection from at least 1638 until 177I, when the Vatican acquired it through Cavaceppi. See Stewart, op. cit., pp. 69, 86, 88 and 296, no. 3.

(17/) An Illustrative Supplement to Pilkington's Dictionary of Painters (privately printed), London, 1805, amended and updated by H. Fuseli, p. 674 (entry on Gavin Hamilton).

Elizabeth Angelicoussis specialises in ancient art in private British collections.

Angelicoussis, Elizabeth

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