Pair Of Gilt Bronze Busts Of Caesar And Anthony, Naples, Late 19th Century

Pair of expressive busts of the emperors Caesar and Antony on a balustraded plinth. The bronze is hot gilded and patinated. The busts may have been made by Chiurazzi, the most important foundry of the 19th century for antique-style bronze objects. The fashion, which appeared at the beginning of the 19th century, of traveling to ancient Roman sites and bringing back souvenirs from them, gave birth in southern Italy to a very diversified production of almost all artistic genres, which made relive antiquity. Roman finds were not the only ones copied, Etruscan, Greek and Egyptian objects were also created in this context. The Chiurazzi foundry, in particular, achieved great fame, as it also cast bronze objects found in the ground and used them as cast models. The busts are therefore most certainly Neapolitan, late 19th century.