Unknown (Italian 19C) Dancing Faun {1892} NGV [SC]

Unknown (Italian, 19^th century)
Dancing Faun (replica)
Bronze, 79.0 x 35.5 x 30.7 cm
Purchased, 1892
National Gallery of Victoria (917-D1M)

This is a replica of the bronze figure in the Naples Museum, found at Pompeii in 1830, and widely copied thereafter.

Haskell & Penny include the original in their catalogue of the hundred antique statues attracting the highest regard in the modern era, noting that recent scholars view it as a Roman copy of a Hellenistic original, possibly from the circle of Lyssipus.

Refs.

AR 1892, p.23; NGV 1894, VI.13; NGV 1905, II.65 [£12]

For the original, see Haskell & Penny Taste and the Antique (1981), cat.no.35, pp.208-9 (noting the height as 0.71m, and citing Robertson’s authoritative opinions on its origins)