Record details

• generalData.authorNameInListings

  Francesco Antonio Franzoni (1734-1818)

• generalData.title

  Panther with her cubs

• technicalData.measurements

  19,5 x 27,5 x 8 cm

• technicalData.description

  Marble "giallo tigrato"
  ANTONIO MOGLIA, C. 1765
  A similar example is preserved in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana

• technicalData.complementaryDescription

  The group examined here, depicting a panther nursing a cub while another little one licks her muzzle, is carved from one of the rarest colored marbles used in Rome, known as giallo tigrato. The sculpture is small in size (19.5 x 26.5 x 5.8 cm) but of notable technical skill, and includes a clump serving as a base made from the same material. Giallo tigrato is a limestone with various intrusions that requires delicate workmanship. The extreme rarity of the material and the difficulty of its execution explain the strong interest that its rare appearances on the art market have always sparked. Its presence in European and American collections is so rare that not even the Vatican’s Room of Animals holds works made from it, and only in the nearby Gallery of the Candelabra is there a cup made of giallo tigrato, donated by Pius IX, although crafted from the lighter and less striking variety of this stone. The block dimensions are always limited, as Gnoli writes.