Italian Patinated Bronze Group Sculpture of Laocoon and His Sons, C. 1870

An Italian grand tour patinated bronze group sculpture of Laocoon and his sons, After the antique by Agesander of Rhodes, C. 1870

Very nice quality sculpture, sitting on a black slate base. We did not find any marks on this sculpture.

Good condition, no damages noted. Minor rubbing to gilding.
Black slate base has normal wear and tear.

Measures: Bronze sculpture: 23" high x 15" wide x 7" deep
With base: 25" high x 17" wide x 9" deep

Agesander (also Agesandros, Hagesander, Hagesandros, or Hagesanderus; Ancient Greek, was one, or more likely, several Greek sculptors from the island of Rhodes, working in the first centuries BC and AD, in a late Hellenistic "baroque" style. If there was more than one sculptor called Agesander they were very likely related to each other. The very important works of the groups of Laocoön and his Sons, in the Vatican Museums, and the sculptures discovered at Sperlonga are both signed by three sculptors including an Agesander.

The statue of Laocoön and His Sons, also called the Laocoön Group (Italian: Gruppo del Laocoonte), has been one of the most famous ancient sculptures ever since it was excavated in Rome in 1506 and placed on public display in the Vatican Museums, where it remains. It is very likely the same statue that was praised in the highest terms by the main Roman writer on art, Pliny the Elder. The figures are near life-size and the group is a little over 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in height, showing the Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus being attacked by sea serpents.

The group has been called "the prototypical icon of human agony" in Western art, and unlike the agony often depicted in Christian art showing the Passion of Jesus and martyrs, this suffering has no redemptive power or reward. The suffering is shown through the contorted expressions of the faces (Dr. Guillaume-Benjamin Duchenne pointed out to Charles Darwin that Laocoön's bulging eyebrows are physiologically impossible), which are matched by the struggling bodies, especially that of Laocoön himself, with every part of his body straining.