#phaune

Jean-Noel Lavesvre

History The statue comes from Rome, where it was found in the moats of Castel Sant'Angelo around 1624. In 1628 it was already in the collection of Cardinal Francesco Barberini. It became immediately one of the most admired statues in Rome, compared in beauty to the mutilated Belvedere Torso. Preserved in Palazzo Barberini, where it was admired and described for two centuries, it became the object of attempts to purchase already in the second half of the eighteenth century, like countless works of art from the Roman princely collections during the Grand Tour. The Faun was restored several times, the first two times in 1628 and 1635 by Arcangelo Gonnelli, who gave it a reclining position. In 1679 a new restoration by Giuseppe Giorgetti and Lorenzo Ottoni changed the pose of the sculpture, from reclining to sitting on a rock. The two restorers were strongly influenced in their choice of pose by the River Nile in Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Fountain of the Rivers. The additions of the legs and left arm were in stucco. More than a century later, in 1799, the Faun was sold directly by the Barberinis, who were in serious financial crisis, to the Roman sculptor and restorer Vincenzo Pacetti, who restored it again by replacing the stucco pieces with marble additions. Pacetti hoped to sell the sculpture to a wealthy foreign buyer. In 1804, following a lawsuit, the Barberinis managed to regain possession of the Faun. It was Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria, who was setting up the Munich Glyptothek at the time, who purchased it in 1814. Cardinal Bartolomeo Pacca had an export ban placed, also at the request of Antonio Canova, so that this masterpiece would remain in Rome; but after several years of diplomatic pressure, the ban was revoked and the sculpture left Rome at the end of 1819. On 6 January 1820 it arrived in Munich, where it was placed in a semi-circle that had long been specially designated for it in the Glyptothek. Further restoration work was carried out in 1972, removing the right leg inserted by Pacetti, which was reintegrated more adequately in 1986. It is considered a masterpiece of Hellenistic sculptural art.