Unknown

Roman sculptor - 17th century Baroque alabaster Hercules and Cerberus group

c.1650

Italian sculptor (19th-20th century) - Pair of marble pedestal sculptures depicting Poseidon and Amphitrite. 44 x 44 x h 90 cm each. Carved entirely in yellow marble, in Baroque st...

Italian sculptor (17th-18th century) - Triton playing a conch shell. 22 x 22 x h 51 cm. Full-length figure in patinated bronze on a rocaille carved and gilded wood base. The trito...

French sculptor (19th century) - Bacchanal. 35 x 35 x h 65 cm. Sculptural group in patinated terracotta, modelled in the round. The group depicts two nymphs and a satyr in a danci...

Carved stone capital. Italy, 16th-17th century. 30 x 25 x h 25 cm. Entirely carved in stone, some breaks and losses. The lawful provenance of the object has been verified and conf...

Elegant and finely carved marble sculpture depicting Hercules as a child fighting the serpents, a classic scene from Greek mythology. Made in Italy in the first half of the 20th cent...

A very fine and charming Italian 19th century carved Carrara Marble Sculpture Group of "Playful Putti with Goat" depicting two young children, one riding the goat whose two front le...

A large & finely sculpted alabaster figure of Ariadne, wife of Dionysus the God of wine, shown adorned with a diadem of vine leaves while resting in repose atop the back of Dionysus’...

Cerberus Black painted stone Italy, 17th century Measures: 80 x 69 x 36cm (one head missing) Cerberus, cruel monster, fierce and strange, Through his wide threefold throat barks as a dog Over the multitude immers'd beneath. His eyes glare crimson, black his unctuous beard, His belly large, and claw'd the hands, with which He tears the spirits, flays them, and their limbs Piecemeal disparts (Dante, Inferno, Canto VI). Cerberus figure seated, in his role of ferocious guardian of the underworld; he shows a nervous musculature, an adherent skin which reveals the ribs, long and robust limbs; his heads are broad and the eyes set well apart. Painted in black to amplify his menacing look, the infernal guardian is depicted with his famous attributes, writhing his heads, growling and barking furiously. Cerberus, in Greek mythology, was the monstrous watchdog of the underworld – also known as the “hound of Hades” – preventing the dead from leaving, and making sure that those who entered never left. A child of Typhon and Echidna, he was part of a monstrous family, which included Orthus, the Lernaean Hydra, and the Chimaera as well. Only on three occasions Cerberus was tricked by visitors of Hades: Heracles did it with his strength, Orpheus with his music. In "The Inferno", Dante places Cerberus as the guardian of the third circle of Hell. With his three mouths, Dante saw Cerberus as a beast that was synonymous with the sin of Gluttony. Virgil gets past the monster by throwing mud in his three mouths, temporarily choking him. Very rare are the representations of Cerberus in ancient statuary...