A Grand Tour Patinated Bronze Figure of Narcissus

A late nineteenth-century patinated bronze reduction of the celebrated Roman bronze of Narcissus (often identified alternatively as Dionysus), excavated at Pompeii in 1862 and housed in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples. The figure stands in a graceful contrapposto, head inclined, draped with a fawn skin across the left shoulder, and resting upon an integral moulded circular base.

Cast in solid bronze, the statuette displays the characteristic encrusted, pale-green verdigris patination favoured by Neapolitan foundries—such as those of Sabatino De Angelis or Chiurazzi—seeking to replicate the oxidised surfaces of freshly excavated antiquities for the Grand Tour market. Tooling to the hair and facial features remains defined beneath the weathered finish.

Small reductions of this subject were amongst the most popular desktop souvenirs acquired by travelers throughout the late Victorian and Edwardian periods.