Two Wrestlers – Sculpture in La Serena
Work
Two Wrestlers
Author
Unknown artist
Year
3rd–2nd centuries BCE
3D Digitization Process
This work does not have an interactive 3D model yet. We are working on its registration and digitization for the virtual museum.
Work narrative
History
The group known locally as Two Wrestlers represents two nude athletes engaged in a ground hold. The upper wrestler straddles and immobilises his opponent, controlling one arm while the lower figure resists by supporting his body against the ground. The scene belongs to the athletic world of ancient Greek wrestling and pankration rather than to a mythological narrative.
The composition derives from the celebrated group I Lottatori in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. That marble is a Roman copy from the 1st century CE after a lost Hellenistic bronze prototype generally dated to the 3rd–2nd centuries BCE. La Serena's historical inventories associated the prototype with Lysippos and a date around 350 BCE, but modern scholarship does not accept that attribution as established. Connections with the Pergamene school or Kephisodotos the Younger remain hypotheses, so the creator of the prototype is unknown.
The Uffizi group was discovered without heads in Rome in 1583. Its late-16th-century restoration incorporated ancient heads originating from other sculptures, including a head associated with the Niobid group. The La Serena reproduction follows this restored Florentine configuration and therefore reproduces both the ancient bodies and the additions through which the work became known in modern Europe.
The reduced-scale version installed on Avenida Francisco de Aguirre was carved in white Carrara marble by the workshop of Pietro Barzanti in Florence between approximately 1948 and 1952. The 0.90-metre group was acquired for Plan Serena through the work of Raúl Irarrázaval and Antonio Rodríguez, transported from Italy through the port of Coquimbo and incorporated into the open-air museum inaugurated on 31 October 1952. The individual craftsperson who carved the marble within the Barzanti workshop is not documented.
Work record
Technical Data
AUTHOR
Unknown artist (Hellenistic prototype); anonymous Roman copy in the Uffizi; workshop of Pietro Barzanti (La Serena reproduction)
CHRONOLOGY
Carrara-marble reproduction, c. 1948–1952; 1st-century CE Roman copy after a lost Hellenistic prototype
MATERIALITY
White Carrara marble (sculptural group and integral plinth) and stone (pedestal)
TECHNIQUE
Carving in white Carrara marble
MOVEMENT
Hellenistic art (reproduction of a Roman copy restored in the late 16th century)
WORK DESCRIPTION
Reduced-scale, free-standing sculptural group carved in white Carrara marble and composed as a low, compact pyramid. Two nude male athletes are intertwined in a ground-wrestling hold. The upper figure straddles the back of his opponent and leans his torso forward, concentrating the weight of the composition over the subdued body.
The lower wrestler twists close to the plinth and attempts to support himself on an extended arm and one thigh. The dominant athlete traps the opponent's other arm at the elbow and wrist, creating a dense crossing of limbs and diagonal lines. The contracted abdomens, shoulders and backs emphasise physical effort, while the opposed heads distinguish the concentration of the victor from the strain of the defeated figure.
A carved support resembling a palm trunk or rocky mass reinforces the group beneath the lower athlete's thighs and transfers the weight towards the base. Both bodies, the support and the rectangular plinth form a continuous marble ensemble mounted on the stone pedestal. The heads reproduce the restored configuration of the Uffizi group rather than the state in which the ancient marble was discovered.