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IV. Capitoline Wolf
from Remembering the End of Eternity: 19th Century Architectural Mementos of Ancient Ruined Rome, 2021
IX. Capitoline Wolf
6” h.; c 1850; patinated cast bronze on an ancient alabastro fiorito base See Pricing.
For Austrialia, it’s the kangaroo; for the Czech Republic, the double-tailed lion; for Russia, the double-headed eagle; etc. No place, though, is symbolized by an animal playing so central a role in its founding as Rome. Ask Romulus and Remus, saved from drowning in the Tiber by the she-wolf, who sustained the twins.
This impressively-sized, extremely detailed model of the medieval, or is it Etruscan or Renaissance?, statue stands today in Palazzo dei Conservatore on the Campidoglio. This model’s figures rest upon a slab of ancient, highly-figured, alabastro fiorito – a stone prized in Renaissance inlay work called commesso.
