Giovanni Battista Piamontini
, Italian, fl.1725-1762
Title
The WrestlersDate1754
MediumMarble
Dimensions
70 x 60 x 83 cm
48 x 79 cm
Credit LineMilltown Gift, 1902
Object numberNGI.8211
Inscriptionon pedestal: IOANNES PIAMONTINIUS/SCULP:FLORENT:MDCCLIVLabel TextPankration was an ancient Greek sport involving a brutal mixture of wrestling and boxing. It became part of the ancient Olympic Games in the seventh century BC. This sculpture of two men engaged in a pankration combat is an eighteenth century copy of an antique Roman sculpture, which in turn was a copy of a Greek bronze sculpture. The Roman version was discovered in Rome in 1583 and was acquired by Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici. It would have been on view in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence in the eighteenth century, when many artists were on the Grand Tour of Europe, studying works of art and historic places.