Mounted Marble Torso

With lead cames, depicting a scene with John the Baptist baptising Christ. 249 grams, 20.3 cm high



Acquired 1990s-early 2000s. East Anglian private collection.

Standing on a hexagonal base wearing a goatskin mantle tied by the forelegs around his shoulders, with poppy seed-heads and bunches of grapes by the left arm; in his raised right hand, a bunch of grapes and in his left hand a cudgel; stump of a tree by his right leg and barrel beside his left, with a lamb to the rear placing its foreleg on top; modelled after the so-called Fauno Rosso from Hadrian's Villa, now in the Capitoline Museum. 18.5 kg, 67 cm high



From an important Paris gallery, France.

Half-man, half-beast, satyrs were believed to be the children of goats and mountain nymphs. Followers of the god Dionysus, they had a reputation for drunkenness and spent their days participating in orgiastic rituals. They represented the crude and boisterous facets of the stereotypical male persona, particularly of rural man.

Depicting a richly dressed facing figure, crowned and nimbate, winged angels on clouds flanking the head; holding a cross in her right hand and a scroll in her proper left arm bearing handwritten Slavic script of the Nicene Creed; additional Slavic script with her name across the right and left fields. 854 grams, 31 cm

The timber shows some old insect flight holes and we are advised that this piece has been recently treated with Permthrin, as a precaution.

Ex French gallery, Paris.

Saint Paraskevi is usually depicted holding an Eastern Cross and a scroll with the words from the Nicene Creed (here, in old Slavonic: Верую во единаго Бога Отца, Вседержителя, Творца небу и земли,видимым же всем и невидимым = We believe in one God, the Father, the almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen), professing her faith in another while being crowned with the crown of the martyrdom by two angels.