Builder's £300 Junkyard Find Poised to Fetch £100,000
A weathered marble statue, initially mistaken for concrete, has been identified as a rare work by Pietro Bracci and is heading to auction.
A builder has discovered a 290-year-old Italian marble statue, believed to be a lost maquette by Baroque master Pietro Bracci, which he purchased for £300 and now expects to sell for up to £100,000.
The sculpture, a 26-inch figure of Pope Clement XII Corsini, was found at a salvage yard in Wiltshire. The yard owners had considered it a concrete piece, but the collector recognized its potential value. The statue originated from a country house near Andover in Hampshire.
Pietro Bracci, the artist behind the work, is renowned for his central figure on Rome's iconic Trevi Fountain. This particular maquette was created in preparation for a large bronze statue that once stood in the Palazzo Nuovo on the Capitoline Hill in Rome. The original bronze no longer exists, making this marble version potentially the sole surviving representation of the work.
The anonymous vendor has consigned the sculpture to Salisbury-based auction house Woolley & Wallis. It has been given a pre-sale estimate of £10,000, but strong international interest suggests it could achieve ten times that amount.
Mark Yuan Richards, a furniture specialist at Woolley & Wallis, described the discovery as "exceptionally exciting." He noted that Bracci, a prominent sculptor of 18th-century Rome, rarely has works appear on the market. The statue, though weathered from approximately 50 years outdoors, is considered unique.
Bracci's other notable works include portraits and tombs for Popes Benedict XIII and XIV. He was commissioned in 1736 to create the bronze statue of Pope Clement XII, funded by the Roman Senate, to commemorate a donation to the Capitoline Museums. Pope Clement XII's papacy (1730-1740) was marked by financial recovery and significant artistic and civic renewal in Rome, including the commencement of the Trevi Fountain.
The bronze statue was moved after its initial installation and was later melted down during the First Republic in 1798. Until this marble maquette's emergence, the only known depiction of the bronze was an engraving by Stefano and Rocco Pozzi.
The exact circumstances of how the maquette ended up in a garden in Hampshire remain unknown. Auctioneers speculate it could have been a gift to a British traveler on the Grand Tour in the 18th century or a diplomatic present.
The statue is scheduled to be sold on October 8.
