Italian school from the second half of the 18th centuryHorse attacked by a lion after Antiquity Bronze with black patina. H: 18 cm, on a green marble base H: 11 cm (Dirty patina, accident to the base). Related works : -Late 4th century BC, Lion attacking a horse, marble, Rome Capitoline Museum; -Susini after a model by Giambologna, Lion attacking a horse, between 1580-1590, bronze, Detroit Institute of Art, inv. 25.20 ; -Giovanni Francesco Susini after a model by Giambologna, Lion attacking a horse, circa 1630/40, bronze with rich red shaded patina, Collection of the Princes of Liechtenstein, inv. SK547 ; Related literature: -F. Haskell & N. Penny, For the Love of Antiquity. Greco-Roman Statuary and European Taste-1500/1900, Hachette, Yale University press, 1981, pp.266-267 ; -Les bronzes de la couronne, cat. exp. Paris, Musée du Louvre, April-July 1999, P: 78, no. 19 nos. 149-150. This group depicting a lion attacking a horse was inspired by the famous antique kept in the Capitoline Museum in Rome, whose composition was restored and completed in 1594 by Ruggero Bascape, a pupil of Michelangelo (attitude of the head; the horse's legs and tail as well as the hind legs). The subject was admirably taken up by the famous Flemish-born sculptor active in Florence at the end of the 16th century, John of Bologna, known as Giambologna. He created a pair of small art bronzes featuring a lion attacking a bull and a lion attacking a horse. The subject was taken up by his no less famous emulator Antonio Susini. The only surviving cast that can be attributed to him is kept at the Detroit Institute of Art (inv. 25.20). The subject enjoyed a long career, being reproduced in smaller formats and with different variations and qualities by generations of Italian and French sculptors. The version that was more faithful to the original composition of the antique competed with Giambologna's with the antiquomania that spread from the second half of the eighteenth century in Italy and the collectionism of the Grand Tour at the turn of the eighteenth century. Tour at the turn of the eighteenth century.