The dying gaul

An Ancient Roman Masterpiece

from the Capitoline Museum, Rome
National Gallery of Art
October 15, 2013 – January 26, 2014

Created in the first or second century AD,

the Dying Gaul is one of the most renowned
works from antiquity. This exhibition marks the
first time it has left Italy since 1797, when Napo-
leonic forces took the sculpture to Paris, where it
was displayed at the Louvre until its return to
Rome in 1816. The Dying Gaul depicts a warrior
in his final moments, his face contorted in pain
just before he collapses from the mortal wound
to his chest (fig. 1). As an image of a vanquished
enemy, the sculpture embodies courage in defeat,
self-possession in the face of death, and the rec-
ognition of nobility in an alien race. A univer-
sally recognized masterpiece, the Dying Gaul is
a deeply moving celebration of the human spirit.

Fig. 1 (above and left detail) Dying Gaul, Roman,

1st or 2nd century AD, marble, 37 × 73 7⁄16 × 35 1⁄16 in.,
Sovrintendenza Capitolina — Musei Capitolini, Rome, Italy
 Discovery
The Dying Gaul was found in Rome with another ancient
marble sculpture: the Gaul Committing Suicide with
His Wife (fig. 2). Both were unearthed in the gardens of
the Villa Ludovisi (fig. 3), probably during excavations
for the villa’s foundations between 1621 and 1623.
The sculptures are Roman copies of Greek bronze
originals created in the third century BC in Asia Minor to
commemorate the victory of the king of Pergamon over the
invading Gauls. In Pergamon, they most likely adorned
the Sanctuary of Athena, who was the protector of the city
(figs. 4 – 5). The Greek bronzes were evidently brought to
Rome, possibly under Emperor Nero (reigned 54 – 68 AD),
where they reminded Romans of their own proud conquest
of Gaul. For both the Romans and the Pergamene Greeks,
the subject also held larger significance: the triumph of
civilization over barbarism.
The Ludovisi sculptures were not immediately recog-
nized as depictions of Gallic warriors. The earliest record
of the Dying Gaul appears in the 1623 inventory of the
Ludovisi collection, in which it is described as a dying glad-
iator. Later, the presence of a trumpet on the plinth led the
German art historian and archaeologist Johann Winckel-
mann (1717 – 1768) to propose that the subject was instead
a Greek herald.

Fig. 2 Roman, Gaul Committing Fig. 4 Hypothetical reconstruction

Suicide with His Wife, 1st or 2nd of the Sanctuary of Athena in Per-
century AD, marble, h. 83 in., Museo gamon in the 3rd century bc, with
Nazionale Romano (Palazzo Altemps), the Hellenistic bronzes the Dying
Rome, Italy. Photo: Scala / Art Gaul and Gaul Committing Suicide
Resource, NY with His Wife (see detail below).
From Richard Bohn, Das Heiligtum
Fig. 3 Giovanni Battista Falda,
der Athena Polias Nikephoros:
View of the Villa Ludovisi and
Alterthümer von Pergamon, vol. 2
Gardens, c. 1670, engraving, Museo
(Berlin, 1885)
Nazionale Romano (Palazzo Altemps),
Rome, Italy. Photo © DeA Picture Fig. 5 Hypothetical reconstruction
Library / Art Resource, NY of the Sanctuary of Athena, Pergamon
(detail)
 Around the turn of the eighteenth century, scholars
began to recognize that the figure portrays instead a Gallic
warrior. The torque around his neck, his mustache, and
his leonine hair all signify a member of one of the Celtic
tribes that the Greeks and Romans considered barbarians.
The sculpture also conforms to ancient descriptions of
Gallic warriors, noted for their bravery and ferocity. In the
second century BC, the historian Polybius marveled that
they fought
wearing nothing but their weapons. . . . Very
terrifying too were the appearance and gestures
of the naked warriors . . . all in the prime of life,
and finely built men.
The Dying Gaul’s matted locks also call to mind the first
century BC historian Diodorus Siculus’s report that the
Gauls washed their hair with lime (fig. 1).

Fame
The fame of the Dying Gaul spread soon after its discovery,
partly through an etching by the French artist François
Perrier that was published in Rome in 1638 (fig. 6). Full-
size replicas of the sculpture were commissioned by King
Philip IV of Spain (reigned 1621 – 1665) and Louis XIV of
France (reigned 1643 – 1715). Bronze statuettes produced by
the Italian sculptor Giovanni Francesco Susini in the 1630s
made the work available to a larger audience (fig. 7). In 1771
Thomas Jefferson, who knew Perrier’s engraving, included
the sculpture on a list of antiquities he hoped to acquire,
presumably in reproduction, for a never-realized art gallery
at Monticello. Copying the Dying Gaul became de rigueur
for art students (fig. 8) and inspired works by Diego Velázquez
(fig. 9), Jacques-Louis David (fig. 10), Giovanni Paolo Panini
(fig. 11), and other artists.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a visit
to the Capitoline Museum to see the original sculpture of
the Dying Gaul was an essential stop on the Grand Tour.
Europeans seeking to further their education by studying
Fig. 6 François Perrier, The Dying Fig. 8 Giovanni Domenico Campiglia, antiquities firsthand included Lord Byron, who toured Italy
Gaul, from Segmenta nobilium sig- Students Drawing the Dying Gaul
norum et statuarum. Photo: Courtesy in the Capitoline Collection, c. 1760. from 1816 to 1818. Still under the misconception that the
of the Library of Congress. Perrier’s From Giovanni Gaetano Bottari, sculpture portrayed a gladiator, he memorialized it in his
print is the earliest published image Musei Capitolini, vol. III (Milan,
of the sculpture. 1821), National Library of Scotland poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage:
Fig. 7 Giovanni Francesco Susini, Fig. 9 Diego Velázquez, Mercury I see before me the gladiator lie
The Dying Gaul, 1630s, bronze, and Argus, 1659, 50 × 98 in., Museo
8 4⁄5 × 16 ½ in., Museo Nazionale del del Prado, Madrid. Photo: The Art He leans upon his hand — his manly brow
Bargello, Florence. Photo: Finsiel / Archive at Art Resource, NY. Philip IV consents to death, but conquers agony
Alinari / Art Resource, NY sent Velázquez to Rome to acquire
plaster casts of antiquities, including
the Dying Gaul. Velázquez based the
figure of Argus on that of the Dying
Gaul, but transferred the Gaul’s arms
to the figure of Mercury.
 The exhibition is organized by Roma Capitale, Sovrin-
tendenza Capitolina — Musei Capitolini, and the National
Gallery of Art, together with the Embassy of Italy,
Washington. It is part of The Dream of Rome and 2013 —
The Year of Italian Culture in the U.S., which is organized
under the auspices of the President of the Italian Republic
by The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the
Embassy of Italy in Washington, in collaboration with
the Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali.

Fig. 10 Jacques-Louis David, Male Fig. 11 Giovanni Paolo Panini,

Nude Study, called Patroclus, 1780, Ancient Rome, 1754 /1757, 66 ½ × 89
48 × 67 in., Musée d’Art Thomas in., Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart. The
Henry, Cherbourg. Photo © RMN- Dying Gaul is to the left of center.
Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. The
back view of the Dying Gaul inspired
David’s portrayal of “Patroclus,”
painted while the artist was at the
French Academy in Rome.

© Board of Trustees, National Gallery

of Art, Washington. This brochure
was written by Susan M. Arensberg,
department of exhibition programs,
and produced by the publishing office.
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