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| Jan de Bisschop The Laocoön ca. 1663-68 etching Rijksmuseum |
In the age of Napoleon, the late Hellenistic marble statue group of the Laocoön retained all the glamour it had already enjoyed in Rome for three centuries. "Visitors still hurried, as they had been doing for so long, to enthuse over the Apollo, the Antinous and the Laocoön and in so doing scarcely paused to comment on the vast wealth of freshly acquired statuary. And the impulse felt by so many of them to express in print their very conventional feelings about masterpieces that had already been described countless times before clearly enhanced the prestige of old favorites rather than drew attention to new discoveries. Familiarity bred not contempt but an irresistible urge to rhapsodize, and never were the disclaimers (which had become conventional as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century) about the need for yet another account of the most famous antique statues so frequently repeated and so little heeded as they were by the end of the eighteenth century."
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| Nicolas Beatrizet The Laocoön in a niche ca. 1540-66 engraving British Museum |
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| Joseph Nollekens The Laocoön ca. 1803-1805 terracotta Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Underwood and Underwood, Publishers The Laocoön ca. 1900 stereograph Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| William Hilton Central Figure from the Laocoön Group ca. 1801-1839 drawing British Museum |
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| attributed to Francesco Righetti The Laocoön before 1781 full-size copy in marble Rijksmuseum |
When the marble Centaur with Cupid (below) was discovered in 17th century Rome, "the head was especially admired and it was likened in character to that of The Laocoön." The statue was on display at the Villa Borghese by the 1630s, and remained there until it was purchased in 1807, along with many other Borghese marbles, by Napoleon, who had it sent to Paris. It has sometimes been called by other names, such as Centaur tamed by Bacchus ; Borghese Centaur ; Centaur in love ; Centaur Nessus led by Love.
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| Centaur with Cupid Roman marble copy of a Hellenistic bronze formerly in the Villa Borghese since 1811 in the Louvre |
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| Domenico de Rossi Centaur with Cupid ca. 1704 engraving Philadelphia Museum of Art |
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| Domenico de Rossi Centaur with Cupid ca. 1704 engraving Philadelphia Museum of Art |
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| Anonymous sculptor Centaur with Cupid late 18th century copy - bronze statuette Royal Collection, Great Britain |
The two Furietti Centaurs were discovered in the 1730s during an excavation at Hadrian's Villa led by Monsignor Furietti. They were copied and imitated dozens of times before the end of the 18th century. A succession of Popes engaged in struggles with Monsignor Furietti to obtain the statues for the state. The Popes could not prevail with the Monsignor, but they prevailed with his heirs. The Centaurs have been on display at the Capitoline Museum since the 1760s.
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| Younger Furietti Centaur Roman copy in bigio morato of a Hellenistic bronze discovered on the site of Hadrian's Villa Capitoline Museum, Rome |
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| Anonymous sculptor Younger Furietti Centaur 18th century copy - marble statuette in rosso antico Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Anonymous sculptor Younger Furietti Centaur 18th century copy in bronze Château de Malmaison |
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| Anonymous sculptor Elder Furietti Centaur 18th century copy in bronze Château de Malmaison |
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| Elder Furietti Centaur (detail) Roman copy in bigio morato of a Hellenistic bronze discovered on the site of Hadrian's Villa Capitoline Museum, Rome |
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| Girolamo Frezza after Nicola Onofri Elder Furietti Centaur 1738 engraving British Museum |
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| Anonymous artist Hall of the Royal Academy, Somerset House Plaster casts of Furietti Centaurs between columns, flanking cast of the Farnese Hercules 1810 hand-colored etching Victoria & Albert Museum |
Quoted passages are from Taste and the Antique by Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny (Yale University Press, 1981).