The Dying Gaul

Artisan: Neil Carter
Date: 2024
Inscriptions: signed ‘Neil Carter’ on the underside
Dimensions: 47 x 80 x 40 mm. / 1 ⅞ x 3 ⅛ x 1 ⅝ inches (height x width x depth)
Inventory number: 2024.001
Intended Room: Gallery
Category: Sculpture

Provenance: Purchased by us from Neil’s Etsy shop in December 2024.

This is the first classically-inspired work we’ve bought from Neil and, as one of the most famous sculptures surviving from antiquity, it was one we couldn’t resist. It’s based on the marble sculpture in the Capitoline Museums in Rome, itself based on a lost bronze Hellenistic original. Once thought to be a gladiator, the figure was identified as a Gaul in the mid-19th century, based on features such as the torc around the man’s neck and the shape of the shield on which he sits. There’s also a kind of carnyx beside him – the ancient Celtic horn. All these details, of course, are present and correct in Neil’s beautiful copy, which also captures the grace and dignity of the dying warrior.

The statue was hugely popular among Grand Tourists in the 18th and 19th centuries, and it was widely replicated at full scale and in miniature versions designed as desk ornaments and paperweights – as well as in prints. This replica, on the larger side, will sit beautifully in the middle of the Gallery, alongside the Quartermaines’ collection of Renaissance and modern sculpture (most of it also made by Neil!).