Roman sculptor, Neoclassical period ALEXANDER MAGNUS oval marble relief, 45x37.5 cm; within rectangular painted and gilded wooden frame, 75.5x70 cm Roman sculptor, Neoclassical period, Alexander the Great, oval marble relief Comparative literature F. Caglioti, Fifteenth Century Reliefs of Ancient Emperors and Empresses in Florence: Production and Collecting , N. Penny, E. Schmidt (eds.), Collecting Sculpture in Early Modern Europe , Washington 2008, pp.106-107 The subject is related to a relief preserved in the Royal Palace of La Granja near Segovia, present in pair with the one depicting Olympia, already studied by Francesco Caglioti, according to whom the relief depicting Alexander was only made during the 18th century, presumably to create a pendant to the one with Olympia, an original work by Desiderio da Settignano. With the exception of the format and dimensions, the relief presented here corresponds quite closely to the Spanish one, and perhaps the most significant variant is to be found in Alexander's helmet where, in our exemplar, the crown also appears, while the sea dragon that stands out in the helmet of the Spanish exemplar is replaced here by a scene that seems to represent Alexander taming Bucephalus. The relief of Desiderio, then considered a classical marble, was donated in 1738 to Isabella, Queen of Spain, by Cardinal Luis Antonio de Belluga y Moncada, who had stayed in Rome for a long time. The Turinese sculptor Filippo Collino made a pair of oval reliefs in Rome in 1756 depicting Olympia and Alexander (now in Turin, Palazzo Reale), where Olympia is clearly inspired by that of Desiderio while Alexander is modelled on a different ancient prototype from the one that inspired the Spanish marble and the one presented here. The early history of the relief with Alexander at the Granja is unknown, and we do not know whether it entered the royal collections in 1738 with a gift from Cardinal Belluga y Moncada (and thus most likely came from Rome), or whether it was sculpted later in Spain. A relief similar to ours was sold, paired with one depicting Olympia, by Pandolfini in 2016, with attribution to a mid-18th century Roman school.