Furietti Centaurs, Roman School

These two bronze statuettes depict a young and an old centaur. They were cast after the celebrated *Furietti Centaurs*, two ancient sculptures named after their first owner, Monsignor Furietti. He oversaw the archaeological excavations at Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli, where the two works were discovered in early 1737.

In 1765, the sculptures were eventually acquired by Pope Clement XIII from Furietti’s heirs, with the intention of placing them in the *Salone* of the Capitoline Museums, where they remain to this day.

Small-scale replicas of these sculptures, together with other celebrated masterpieces of Antiquity, were produced in bronze, terracotta and porcelain in Rome and elsewhere, intended for Grand Tour travellers wishing to bring home a memento of their cultural journey.

The centaurs soon became a particularly popular subject, inspiring numerous drawings, casts and replicas from shortly after their discovery and throughout the nineteenth century, as exemplified by the present pair of statuettes.