In the context of Ludovisi Gaul, discuss the Provenance of the History.
After being lost for many years, the statue was rediscovered in the early 17th century. During excavations for the building of Villa Ludovisi, the sculpture was found along with The Dying Gaul. Years later when the villa was redeveloped, more antiquities were found such as the Ludovisi Throne. The sculpture group made its first appearance in a Ludovisi inventory taken 2 February 1623, and was possibly found in the grounds of the Villa Ludovisi, Rome, shortly before that. The area had been part of the Gardens of Sallust (formerly owned by Julius Caesar) in Classical times, and proved a rich source of Roman (and some Greek) sculpture through the 19th century (Haskell and Penny, 282). Among the last of the finds at Villa Ludovisi, before the area was built over, was the Ludovisi Throne.
The sculpture, now in the Museo Nazionale di Roma, Palazzo Altemps, Rome, was greatly admired from the 17th century. It appeared in engravings in therepertory of sculpture in Rome by Perrier and was codified by Audran as one of the sculptures of Antiquity that defined the canon of fine proportions of the human body. Nicolas Poussin adapted the figure for the group in the right foreground of his Rape of the Sabine Women, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Friedlaender 19 and fig. 108). Visitors and writers of guidebooks found many subjects drawn from Roman history to account for the action: the 1633 Ludovisi inventory lists it as "a certain Marius who kills his daughter and himself", drawing upon the story of a certain patrician Sextus Marius, who in seeking to protect his daughter from the lust of Tiberius, was accused of incest with her.
Giovanni Francesco Susini rendered the group in a small bronze. The marble was copied by François Lespingola for Louis XIV and may still be seen paired with the Laocoön at the entrance to the Tapis Vert at Versailles; the cast prepared in preparation for the copy was retained at the French Academy in Rome (where it remains). The Ludovisi heirs prohibited further casts, but in 1816–19 Prince Luigi Boncompagni Ludovisi sent plaster casts to the Prince Regent; the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Prince Metternich; and the diplomat at the Congress of Vienna, Wilhelm von Humboldt (Haskell and Penny 284).
Congress of Vienna Nicolas Poussin Villa Ludovisi Louis XIV Prince Metternich Gardens of Sallust François Lespingola Palazzo Altemps Laocoön The Dying Gaul Giovanni Francesco Susini Ludovisi Sextus Marius Museo Nazionale di Roma, Palazzo Altemps Gaul Dying Gaul Prince Regent Wilhelm von Humboldt 19th century French Academy in Rome Versailles Ludovisi Throne Metropolitan Museum of Art