Lot 169 A PAIR OF SCULPTED MARBLE MODELS OF MOLOSSIAN GUARD DOGS, SECOND HALF 20TH CENTURY, AFTER A 2ND CENTURY AD ROMAN MODEL KNOWN AS THE ‘JENNINGS DOG’ OR ‘THE DOG OF ALCIBIADES’
Portrayed as seated on their haunches and opposing. Each 84 cm. high.
Set on rectangular section marble plinths with panel sides, 71 cm. high, 65 cm. wide, 50 cm. deep, 155 cm. high overall.
"The Jennings Dog (also known as the Duncombe Dog or the Dog of Alcibiades) is named after its first modern owner Henry Constantine Jennings. It is a 2nd century AD Roman copy of a Hellenistic bronze original, and is 1.05 metres high. Although it is one of only a small number of animal sculptures surviving from antiquity, a pair of similar marble mastiffs of the same model can be seen in the Belvedere Court of the Vatican Museums The breed has been identified by the British Museum as a Molossian guard dog. This breed was native to Epirus in north-western Greece, which was sacked by Rome in 168 BC, so it is assumed to have been associated with some civic monument in Epirus and to have been brought to Rome after the sacking. Pliny mentions a highly valued bronze dog surviving in Rome into his lifetime, before being lost in 69 AD"