A 19th century 'GrandTour'  bronze figure of the Dancing Faun, standing on a bronze square plinth. The faun balances on his toes and pivots, his horned head raised, his hair wreathed with acorns. He is smiling lasciviously, flipping his tail, and snapping his fingers.  

Height: 80cm

Plinth width 26 x length 28cm

The original dancing faun was discovered in October 1830, installed in the middle of an impluvium, the pool in the atrium, in the ruins of a grand Pompeiian house, destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius near Naples in 79CE. The house was named the House of the Faun after the statue, which, much like the great Alexander Mosaic from the same house, immediately became famous.  Thought to be based on an earlier Hellenistic work, an English traveller in 1838 declared it 'the Venus de Medicis of Sylvans'.

In 1860, under Victor Emmanuel II, the antiquities from Pompeii were put on view for the general public in the National Archaeological Museum at Naples. Permits for taking molds from antiquities in order to copy them were soon granted to various individuals and institutions. The reproductions that these enterprises offered were often reduced in scale, making them easy for grand tourists to take home to northern Europe, Britain, and America.