A Hellenistic bronze statue fragment . Circa 2nd-1st Century B.C. Estimate: £50,000 - 80,000, US$ 79,000 - 130,000, € 60,000 - 96,000. Photo Bonhams

Bonhams next sale of Antiquities on April 25th in New Bond Street features an important piece of Classical bronze sculpture, believed to depict a Hellenistic warrior of the 1st Century B.C., discovered in a London home. After conservation it will be sold for £50,000 to £80,000.

Madeleine Perridge, Head of Antiquities at Bonhams, says: "Once in a while you come across something special and despite the condition this piece was in, its power and significance was unmistakable. When we stumbled across this bronze torso it was in a very fragile and fragmentary state in a London home. But there was no mistaking its importance as one of a relatively small group of surviving life-size Classical bronzes."

Relatively few bronze cuirassed busts such as this have survived, even in fragmentary condition. The posture of this torso suggests that the figure was originally mounted on horseback, with the right arm raised to brandish a weapon. The dynamic movement of the drapery as it flows out beneath the raised arm gives a vitality to the piece very much in-keeping with Hellenistic art. Equestrian statues were common in the Hellenistic period, depicting kings such as Alexander and later on, generals of the Roman Republic.

This piece represents a fantastic opportunity for collectors, as most surviving Classical cuirassed figures are sculpted in marble, whilst the few examples in bronze are found almost exclusively in museum collections. Not only is it rare to find a surviving bronze of this style, but it is rarer still to find one with such a dynamic look, created by the incredible detail and accentuated movement in the figure's drapery.

Now, after some conservation work the sculpture more than justifies that excitement. The life-size bronze is depicted wearing military dress, with the right arm upraised. He wears a tunic with a leather vest over the top, with the tasselled ends visible at the shoulder beneath the metal cuirass. The shoulder straps of the cuirass are decorated in relief with a star and lion's head. The folds of the cloak are draped over the right shoulder and around the body. It stands 23in (58.4cm) high.

The work comes from an English private collection in London and was gifted to the present owner in the 1960s by Jimmy McMullen of Obelisk Gallery, Crawford Street, London.

A Hellenistic bronze statue fragment . Circa 2nd-1st Century B.C. Estimate: £50,000 - 80,000, US$ 79,000 - 130,000, € 60,000 - 96,000. Photo Bonhams

Literature:: The posture of this torso suggests that the figure was originally mounted on horseback, with the right arm raised to brandish a weapon. The dynamic movement of the drapery as it flows out beneath the raised arm gives a vitality to the piece very much in-keeping with Hellenistic art. Equestrian statues were common in the Hellenistic period, 'both naked and cuirassed, and were perhaps more often used for kings than others': R.R.R. Smith, Hellenistic Sculpture, London, 1991, p.19. 

Such compositions have their origin in the bronze victory group by Lysippos of Alexander the Great on horseback, commemorating his defeat of the Persians. This piece is lost but a slightly later bronze example found at Herculaneum and now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, inv. no. 4996, gives a sense of what this piece would have originally looked like. Cf. C.C. Mattusch, Pompeii and the Roman Villa, London, 2008, no. 116.

Relatively few bronze cuirassed busts such as this have survived, even in fragmentary condition. There is a bronze torso from an equestrian statue wearing a cuirass in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (acc. no. 2003.407.7) which has been dated to the Hellenistic or Imperial periods, circa 2nd Century B.C.- 2nd Century A.D. In the late Hellenistic period, Roman generals and Imperium-bearers in the East adopted this iconographic tradition which then eventually became part of the repertoire of Imperial public sculpture. Due to the scarcity of surviving bronzes of this type it is very hard to date many such equestrian torsos securely as Hellenistic or Roman. 

However the New York example has none of the energy and movement of this piece and other Hellenistic examples. For example, the mid-3rd Century B.C. equestrian figure on a metope from a funerary naiskos in Taranto, cf. A. Stewart, Greek Sculpture, Yale, 1990, no. 658. This demonstrates similar flowing drapery and power. 

There are also surviving free-standing marble examples of equestrian officers dated to the 2nd-1st Century B.C. One found in Milos, now in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens (inv. no. 2715) where the horse still remains, demonstrates the a type of drapery drawn around the right side of the torso and then tucked into the waist strapping. It seems likely that this is how the drapery would have been arranged on this fragment. 

For other examples and further discussion of the type, cf. I. Laube,Thorakophoroi: Gestalt und Semantik des Brustpanzers in der Darstellung des 4 bis, 1 Jhr,. v. chr., Leidorf, 2006.