Public Doman Photo: Statue of Athena and Marsyas, a recreation of a lost bronze by Athenian sculptor Myron of Eleutherae (480-440 BC) in Botanic Garden, Copenhagen, Denmark.
The theme of the statue is based on the Greek mythological story of Marsyas, who was an expert in playing the Aulos, a double-piped reed musical instrument. According to myths, he found Aulos on the ground where Athena, its inventor had thrown it away.
Public Domain Photo: Adonis,a bronze sculpture inspired by an antique sculpture from the French royal collections, created by the Swiss sculptor and gunfounder Jean-Balthazar Keller (1638-1702), cast in 1687, dimensions H: 1.62 m (5 ft. 3 ¾ in.), W: 70 cm (27 ½ in.), located at Louvre Museum, Paris.
Photo dimension: 2000×3000 pixels, size 1555 KB
Photo dimension: 2000×3000 pixels, size 1806 KB
Public Domain Photos (two views): La jeune fille à la coquille (The girl in the shell), bronze sculpture by French sculptor and painter Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827-1875) located at Musée de Cambrai (Museum of Fine Arts of Cambrai at 15, rue de l'Épée, 59400 Cambrai, France).
Photo: The Rape of a Sabine Woman, bronze sculpture after Giovanni Bologna (Giambologna), 1600-1650, located in Honolulu Academy of Arts.
Photo: Le cheval majeur (Large Horse), created by French sculptor Raymond Duchamp-Villon (1876-1918) in 1914 and enlargement done in 1966, located at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas (Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection, acquired in 1980)
Photo: Two views of The Large Horse (1914), a bronze sculpture by Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Photo: Eve, 1881 bronze sculpture (cast before 1932) by French sculptor Auguste Rodin (François-Auguste-René Rodin, 1840-1917), at the Nasher Sculpture Center museum (Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection) in Dallas, Texas specializing in modern and contemporary sculpture at a site adjacent to the Dallas Museum of Art in the heart of the Dallas Arts District - photo by Andreas Praefcke.
Photo: Eve, 1881 bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin at the Nasher Sculpture Center museum, view from the back, photo by Andreas Praefcke.
Photo: Replica of the bronze statue of Danaë in the pedestal of Perseus, by Italian goldsmith, sculptor, painter, soldier and musician Benvenuto Cellini, in the basement of Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence, Italy. The original is on display at the Museo del Bargello in Florence.
Photo: Replica of a bronze statue in the pedestal of Perseus by Benvenuto Cellini in the basement of Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence, Italy. The original is on display at the Museo del Bargello in Florence.
Photo: The Birth of Eve (Ève naissante), bronze statue by French sculptor and painter Paul Dubois (1829-1905), located at Musée du Petit Palais, Paris, France, credited as Gift of Messrs. Paul-Dubois, sons of the artist in 1910.
The Young Girl (Junges Mädchen), a bronze sculpture by German sculptor Fritz Klimsch (1870-1960) located at the Botanical Garden in Berlin (Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem), which is one of the most important gardens in the world, spread over an area of 43 hectares with around 22,000 different plant species (photo taken on 2 September 2006). Permission to reuse this photo: This is NOT a public domain photo, but Axel Mauruszat, © the copyright holder allows anyone to use it for any purpose, provided the copyright holder is properly attributed. Redistribution, derivative work, commercial use, and all other uses are permitted.
Bronze sculpture, ‘Young Girl’ (Junges Mädchen) by German sculptor Fritz Klimsch (1870-1960) at the Botanical Garden in Berlin (Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem), which is considered one of the most important gardens in the world, with an area of 43 hectares and around 22,000 different plant species. The photo was taken on 2 September 2006 by Axel Mauruszat. Permission to reuse this photo: This is NOT a public domain photo, but Axel Mauruszat, © ‘the copyright holder of this file allows anyone to use it for any purpose, provided that the copyright holder is properly attributed. Redistribution, derivative work, commercial use, and all other uses are permitted’.
Photo: This photo, taken on 17 August 2008, shows a bronze copy of Diana of Versailles (Artemis with a hind), which is a marble statue of Roman artwork of 1st-2nd centuries CE. The original marble statue is located at Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman antiquities, Sully, ground floor, room 17, Louvre Museum, Paris, France.
Not just the name, but certain other features are also shared between the American city of Rome and the Italian city of Rome. Rome in Georgia, USA, was built on seven hills with a river meandering through them, a feature that was an inspiration for the name. The seven hills that inspired the name of Rome are Blossom Hill, Jackson Hill, Lumpkin Hill, Mount Aventine Hill, Myrtle Hill, Old Shorter Hill, and Neely Hill.
In 1928 Italian Chatillon Corporation began construction of a rayon plant in Georgian Rome, as a joint venture with the American Cotillion Company, for the cornerstone of which Italian premier Benito Mussolini sent a block of marble from the ancient Roman Forum with the inscription, "From Old Rome to New Rome". On completion of the rayon plant in 1929, Mussolini honored Rome with a bronze replica of the sculpture of The Capitoline Wolf, suckling the twin brothers Remus and Romulus, who named Rome after his name.
The bronze statue The Capitoline Wolf, a symbol of the original Rome, was placed in front of the City Hall of the new Rome on a base of white marble from Tate, Georgia, with a brass plaque inscribed, "This statue of the Capitoline Wolf, as a forecast of prosperity and glory, has been sent from Ancient Rome to New Rome during the consulship of Benito Mussolini in the year 1929."
In 1940, anti-Italian sentiments due to World War II ran so strong that the Rome city commission moved the statue into the storage to prevent any possible vandalism, replacing it with an American flag. In 1952, the statue of The Capitoline Wolf was restored to its original location in front of City Hall. You can view the picture of the historical statue above, taken on 8 August 2005.
The Capitoline Wolf (Lupa Capitolina), a larger than life-size bronze sculpture standing 75 cm tall and 114 cm, long is located in the Museo Nuovo in the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Campidoglio (the ancient Capitoline Hill) in Rome, Italy. The statue's theme is linked to the founding of Rome, when the twins Romulus and Remus saw their father Numitor dethroned by his brother Amulius, who ordered the twins be thrown into the Tiber. But the twin brothers were rescued by a she-wolf that suckled them and took care of them until a herdsman, Faustulus, found them raised them further. The brothers, with the support of their followers decided to found a new city, but in a dispute about the site of the city Romulus killed Remus and built Rome, which was named after his name.
The Capitoline Wolf statue was long thought to be an Etruscan work of the 5th century BCE, with the figures of the twins added in the late 15th century CE, probably by the sculptor Antonio Pollaiolo. However, radiocarbon and thermo-luminescence dating tests found that sculpture was possibly created in the 13th century CE.
The she-wolf from the legend of Romulus and Remus has been regarded as a symbol of Rome from the ancient times. Several ancient sources refer to statues depicting the wolf suckling the twins. Cicero mentions a statue of the she-wolf as one of several sacred objects on the Capitoline that was inauspiciously struck by lightning in 65 BCE, "It was a gilt statue on the Capitol of a baby being given suck from the udders of a wolf."
German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann of the 18th-century attributed the statue to an Etruscan sculptor of the 5th century BCE. But, Winckelmann also identified a Renaissance origin for the figures of Romulus and Remus, saying they were probably added in 1471 or later.
During the 19th century several researchers questioned Winckelmann's dating of the bronze sculpture. In 1854 August Emil Braun, Secretary of the Archaeological Institute of Rome, proposed that the damage to the wolf's paw had been caused by an error during casting of the statue, not due to lightning. Similarly, Conservator of the Louvre, Wilhelm Fröhner, stated in 1878 that the style of the statue was of the Carolingian period rather than Etruscan. In 1885 Wilhelm von Bode also opined that the she-wolf statue was most likely a medieval work.
In 2006 Italian art historian Anna Maria Carruba and Etruscologist Adriano La Regina contested the traditional origin of the she-wolf on the basis of the bronze casting technique. Carruba was restoring the sculpture in 1997, when she examined how it had been made. She observed that the statue had been cast as a single piece, using a ‘lost-wax casting’ technique that was not used in ancient times. Ancient Greek and Roman bronze statues were constructed from multiple pieces. Whereas, single piece casting technique was widely used in medieval times to mould bronze items. Carruba argued, like Braun, that the damage to the she-wolf's paw had resulted from an error in the moulding process. In addition, La Regina, the state superintendent of Rome's cultural heritage, argued that the sculpture's artistic style is more akin to Carolingian and Romanesque art than to the ancient times.
In February 2007, radiocarbon and thermo-luminescence dating tests was conducted at the University of Salento. Although in July 2008 La Regina announced that the results of the tests had produced a ‘very precise indication in the 13th century’, the question of the age of the statue was not solved. The results of the tests were not to be disclosed before the end of 2008, but as of April 2010, they have not been published by the Museo Nuovo.
The twelfth-century English cleric Magister Gregorius in his essay, De Mirabilibus Urbis Romae, recorded in an appendix three pieces of sculpture he had neglected, one being the wolf in the portico at the principal entrance to the Vatican Palace. But he mentioned no twins.
The present-day Capitoline Wolf could not have been the sculpture seen by Benedict and Gregorius, if its newly attributed age is accepted, though it could have been a replacement for an earlier, now lost, statue of the Roman wolf. In December 1471 Pope Sixtus IV ordered the present sculpture transferred to the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitoline Hill, and the twins were possibly added then.
The Capitoline Wolf was a favorite of Benito Mussolini, who projected himself as the founder of the ‘New Rome’. To win American goodwill, he sent several copies of the Capitoline Wolf to U.S. cities. In 1929 he sent one replica to Cincinnati, Ohio, which was replaced in 1931by another replica of the statue, which still stands in Eden Park, Cincinnati. The same year another replica was given by Mussolini to the city of Rome, in Georgia, located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, United States. A third replica was sent to New York City.
The Capitoline Wolf has a special place in the past and present history, as well as the culture of Rome. The image of the Capitoline Wolf was used on both the emblem and the poster for the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. Also, the Roman football club A.S. Roma uses the Capitoline Wolf in its emblem.
Verteidigung einer Sabinerin (1886), inspired by the legend of Romulus and Remus, is a larger than life bronze statue in the neo-baroque style created by the Berlin sculptor Joseph Uphues. It was commissioned by Philipp Schoeller for his garden. Now the statue is located in Stadtpark, Düren, Germany.
Romulus and Remus are the twin founders of Rome, according to the traditional myth. They are fathered by Mars or the demigod Hercules on a royal Vestal Virgin, Rhea Silvia, whose uncle leaves them to die in the wild. The twins are found by a she-wolf who suckles and takes care of them and eventually they attract many followers and decide to found a new city.
Romulus wishes to build the new city on the Palatine Hill, but Remus prefers the Aventine Hill. They agree to determine the site through augury. Romulus seems to receive more favorable signs but each of the twins claims the results in his favor and in the dispute, Romulus kills Remus. Romulus builds and names the new city Rome, after his name.
Photo shot by Jerry Fisher at Fawick Park in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, United States on 22 May, 2005. This full-sized bronze reproduction of Michelangelo’s sculpture, David, was a gift from the inventor Thomas Fawick to the city of Sioux Falls.
