OF GRAND TOUR INTEREST: AN ITALIAN BRONZE GROUP OF THE GOD OF WAR MARS KNOWN AS 'THE LUDIVISO ARES'

This bronze of the god of war, Mars/Ares, is named after the Roman marble version carved in the 2^nd Century CE, itself copying a much earlier Greek original of the late 4^th Century BCE . The Roman version was discovered in 1622, near the temple of Mars and assimilated into the collection of  Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi (1595-1632), who happened to be the nephew  of the powerful Pope Gregory XV  and owned a splendid villa and gardens in Rome. Coincidentally, he was able to commission Bernini, the imminent Baroque sculptor of the day, to restore and embellish the Roman sculpture. Its profile and popularity were raised by the connoisseur Winckekmann, who catalogued the collection at the end of the 18^th Century, and identified this model of Mars as the perfect male beauty. It also depicts the fearsome god of war at a moment of repose, while Eros (love) plays at his feet, revealing a capacity for love. Little is known of the bronzier-sculptor, Morelli E Rinaldi, but examples of this work are usually signed, being part of a group of sculptors / founders working in the Grand Tour tradition, copying Greek/Roman prototypes to the highest of standards to be sold as statuettes, like the workshops of Benedetto Boschetti. 

condition report: