DALLA BOTTEGA DI PASITELES A QUELLA DEI LOMBARDO? SU UNA STATUA DI MERCURIO NEL MUSEO DI ANTICHITÀ DI TORINO

Abstract

The so-called St. Ildefonso group, now in the Prado Museum, has been considered a unicum, lacking
life-size ancient replicas. However, a statue in the Museo di Antichità in Turin, restored in modern
times with the attributes of Mercury, might remove this group from its isolation. It is proposed here
to recognize in the Turin torso a replica of the so-called. Orestes of the St. Ildefonsus group: traces
of marble rework on the left shoulder and shoulder blade seem to suggest the original presence of
the arm of a second figure, which is now lost.
The provenance of this statue is still uncertain, but its arrival from Rome seems very likely. However,
modern restorations, which have affected the head, left arm, and lower legs, might indicate connections
to the Venetian artistic milieu of the early 16th century. A stylistic comparison, proposed here,
with the head of the Grimani Hermaphrodite, now in the Archaeological Museum in Venice and
lately attributed to the hand of Tullio Lombardo, provides an interesting point of investigation and
suggests the possibility that the restorations of the Turin Mercury are also to be traced back to the
Lombardo circle, even though, in the absence of archival data, this attribution remains a hypothesis.
This would not, however, be an isolated case among the marbles in the archaeological collections of
the Savoy family: other antique or ‘all’antica’ pieces in this collection have already been attributed
to the Lombardo circle or to the Venetian school.

Keywords: Scultura tardo-ellenistica, gruppi della scuola di Pasiteles, collezioni Ludovisi, Grimani,
Altoviti, Savoia, scultura veneta della prima metà del XVI secolo, restauro rinascimentale di statue
antiche.