Antique Sculpture

Whether you are looking for a carefully carved Italian marble, a finely sculpted bronze, or a porcelain miniature, Mayfair Gallery’s impressive antique sculpture collection features works by the most prestigious makers and artists, sure to satisfy the most discerning of buyers.

Sculpture is most likely the oldest form of visual art, since our prehistoric ancestors carved in rock and wood long before the earliest cave paintings. Across the globe, small statuettes were used for ritual purposes within a variety of cultures. Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome saw the gradual development of a more realistic style, which aimed to capture the intricacies of the human body stone, marble, and bronze.

Ancient Greek sculpture in particular went on to be hugely influential within the Western art world. Alongside the Renaissance revival of classical culture, the rediscovery of the lost sites of Herculaneum and Pompeii during the mid-18^th century sparked yet another revival of classicism, with the preserved archaeological discoveries from these sites providing sculptural relics that contemporary artists could use as models.

The beginning of the 19^th century thus saw the Neoclassical movement. Inspired by both the forms and subject matter of the classical period, 19^th century sculptors cast impressive mythological and oriental figures in marble and bronze, with an extraordinary degree of verisimilitude that rivalled the ancient masters. Mayfair Gallery presents a large collection of Neoclassical sculpture: from charming marble putti to grand characters of mythology.

With the advent of the 20^th century came a host of modernist design movements, and Mayfair Gallery’s collection of sculpture contains a number of exquisite early 20^th century works, including those in the Art Deco style. Yet Austrian sculpture in the early 20^th century was defined by a novel technique – cold-painting, a complex technique used to create brightly coloured bronzes. Mayfair Gallery is proud to offer one of the largest collections of cold-painted bronzes in the world, with many works by Franz Xaver Bergman, the father of the cold-painted bronze technique.

Filled with works from old and new masters, Mayfair Gallery’s exquisite antique sculpture collection immortalise different figures and scenes, both historical and mythological.

Learn more about the history of antique sculpture in our blog here.