Patinated bronze group, the 'Rape of the Sabine Women'

After Giambologna (1529-1608), on a veined black marble base.

Between 1581 and 1583 Giambologna created the original colossal marble group 'The Rape of a Sabines' in the Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence. To Giambologna it was a group which allowed him to demonstrate his skills of composition, a group that could be viewed from virtually every angle and was astonishing in its use of complex spiralling forms, depicting the tangle of figures with great tension and a reaching of limbs climbing upward. This scene represents one of the oldest events in the history of Rome, the Rape of the Sabines, a story cloaked in myth that was a very popular theme in late Renaissance artwork.