Pair Of Gilt Bronze Busts Of Caesar And Anthony, Naples, Late 19th Century

A pair of expressive busts of the emperors Caesar and Antony on a baluster base. The bronze is hot gilded and patinated. The busts may have been made by Chiurazzi, the most important 19th-century foundry for antique-style bronze objects. The fashion, which emerged at the beginning of the 19th century, of travelling to ancient Roman sites and bringing back souvenirs, gave rise in southern Italy to a very diverse production of almost all artistic genres, which brought antiquity to life. Not only Roman finds were copied, but Etruscan, Greek and Egyptian objects were also created in this context.
The Chiurazzi foundry, in particular, gained great renown, as it also cast bronze objects found in the ground and used them as casting models.
The busts are therefore almost certainly Neapolitan, end of the 19th century.