The Ludovisi Gaul

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The Ludovisi Gaul Killing Himself and His Wife is a Roman marble group that depicts a man plunging a sword into his breast while supporting the dying figure of a woman with his left arm. The sculpture is a copy from the early 2nd century AD, made from a Hellenistic original created between 230-20 BC by Greek sculptors commissioned by Attalus I after his victories over the Gauls of Galatia. Two other Roman marble copies from this project are equally famous Dying Gaul and less known Kneeling Gaul. The sculpture first appeared in a Ludovisi inventory on February 2, 1623, and was possibly discovered in the grounds of the Villa Ludovisi, Rome, shortly before that. The area had been part of the Gardens of Sallust in ancient times and proved to be a rich source of Roman and Greek sculptures throughout the 19th century. Among the last finds at Villa Ludovisi before it was built over was the Ludovisi Throne. The sculpture is now housed in the Museo Nazionale di Roma, Palazzo Altemps, Rome, where it has been greatly admired since the 17th century. It appeared in engravings in Perrier's repertory of Roman sculptures and was codified by Audran as one of the ancient sculptures that defined the canon of fine human proportions. Nicolas Poussin adapted the figure for his group in the right foreground of The Rape of the Sabine Women, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Visitors and writers found many subjects from Roman history to account for the action, including a certain Marius who kills his daughter and himself, drawing upon the story of patrician Sextus Marius. Giovanni Francesco Susini rendered the group in a small bronze, while François Lespingola created a marble copy for Louis XIV, which may still be seen paired with Laocoön at the entrance to the Tapis Vert at Versailles. The cast prepared for this copy was retained at the French Academy in Rome and remains there. The Ludovisi heirs prohibited further casts, but Prince Luigi Boncompagni Ludovisi sent plaster casts to the Prince Regent, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Prince Metternich, and diplomat Wilhelm von Humboldt between 1816-19.